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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26615422">Searching For A Sign</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyAceOfDiamonds/pseuds/LilyAceOfDiamonds'>LilyAceOfDiamonds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Multi, Polyamory, no one is straight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:35:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,262</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26615422</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyAceOfDiamonds/pseuds/LilyAceOfDiamonds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Penny finds a new clue to the treasure he has been searching for, and needs help from ex-girlfriend Kady to figure out the next step. Kady has been working on Eliot, Fen, and Margo’s ship, and Penny convinces them to join in on the hunt as well. Working together with several others, including Fen's friend Julia, will they find the stolen treasure of the Fillorian people? Can Penny and Kady repair a fragile relationship, and maybe create some new ones in the process?</p><p>(Loosely based on the movie Fool's Gold)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fen/Margo Hanson, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, William "Penny" Adiyodi/Kady Orloff-Diaz/Julia Wicker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Magicians Happy Ever After</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Searching For A Sign</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26621851">Art for the MHEA story Searching for a Sign</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doomkitty25/pseuds/Doomkitty25">Doomkitty25</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I had the pleasure of working with an incredible artist doomkitty25, who made illustrations for this fic (one of which inspired a section of the story!), you should check them out and give her some love! She had to put up with a lot of my procrastination and shambling first drafts, and her art is amazing.</p><p>And a MASSIVE hug to my beta NightjarPatronus, who had to suffer though listening to me rant about plot holes for days and let me talk them out, and for screaming at shitty drafts and runaway characters with me. Any mistakes you find are mine.</p><p>I don't think I delved too deep into any potential trigger warnings, but let me know if you think I need one for anything! There's some discussion of less-than-ideal childhoods, the beginning of an anxiety attack, and a fair amount of strong language.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>There.</p><p>Faded by time, yet it matched the drawings perfectly. Two rams facing away from each other, the insignia of the lost Fillorian culture.</p><p>Penny wipes away more of the sand clinging to what looks like … a dinner plate? Well, he supposes that makes sense. People needed to eat, after all. And at least the plate is mostly intact, especially the crest. That’s the important part.</p><p>That’s the proof, the sign he had been searching for.</p><p>He feels a tug on the tube at his waist. Penny looks up from his place near the seafloor, following the oxygen line towards the base of his ship.</p><p>Or what had been the base, flat under the waterline. His eyes go wide as he notices that the line going taut because the ship is tilting.</p><p>Shit. Fuck.</p><p>Penny looks for his diving partner. Pete is a few dozen yards away, facing away and scouring the sand for clues of the treasure like the plate fragment in Penny’s hand. Sliding the plate into the bag on his waist and yanking out the air supply tube that’s pulling him slowly back towards his sinking ship, he swims quickly over to his friend.</p><p>Shouting with a diving mask isn’t very effective. However, it does still make enough noise to cause Pete to look over at him as he approaches, gesturing wildly and trying to point out the sinking ship.</p><p>Nevermind the fact that she shouldn’t be sinking. Seriously, what the fuck.</p><p>Pete gets his own line unplugged and they swim upward together, trying to reach the surface before the air they have in their backup tanks runs out. Always be prepared for the worst, even if they’re only a hundred feet or so below the water’s surface.</p><p>Because the ship is sinking.</p><p>His Ship. The Chickady. Is Sinking.</p><p>For no fucking reason. They had been anchored off the coast of some private island for most of the day, and nothing had been wrong when they had gone back up for lunch several hours ago.</p><p>And now his ship is sinking.</p><p>Kady is going to kill him.</p><p>Fuck. Shit. Damn.</p><p>They make it to the surface, legs burning from the pace they kept up, but Penny doesn’t want to look to see how much air is left in the tank.</p><p>He does notice that it’s much later in the day than he had thought, the sun low on the horizon.</p><p>Pulling his mask off, he takes a few deep breaths as he treads the ocean waves.</p><p>“What the fuck, dude?”</p><p>Penny snorts, looking over at Pete as he pulls his own mask off.</p><p>“My boat decided to sink all on her own. I don’t fucking know, Pete!”</p><p>“Kady’s going to kill you. She loved that boat.”</p><p>He groans. “I know. I’ll … I’ll think of something. Besides, she doesn’t want to talk to me right now anyway, remember?”</p><p>“Right, right.” Pete is silent for a minute, their ragged breaths the only sounds broken by the occasional bird screeching in the distance. “So, time to see if the owner of that island over there is going to keelhaul us for trespassing?”</p><p>“I suppose. Get your sleazy ‘charming salesman’ personality ready, I have no idea how we’re going to talk our way out of this one.”</p><p>“I’m always charming, asshole.”</p><p>“Sure, sure. Let’s go, then, charming asshole.” They start slowly swimming towards the island and whoever awaits them on its shores.</p><p>Probably the same people who sunk his damn boat.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PETE ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Pete is a charming bastard, whatever Penny says. He’s talked his way out of many difficult situations over the years and talked his way into plenty more delightful ones.</p><p>But this? He hadn’t signed up for this.</p><p>They had collapsed, exhausted, onto the shores of the island. He thinks it’s called McAllistair Island if the maps they had studied had been accurate. Some rich family that owns the entire -- albeit small -- island, Pete and Penny had looked up the shoreline records to make sure they could stay out of the property boundaries when they anchored the Chickady. They had learned that mistake the hard way several islands ago.</p><p>That had been the same island where Kady had left. It had been a shitty situation all around, fines and fighting and being thrown into the local drunk tank for a weekend. Pete never wanted to visit that island again. Bad Luck Island, he had scrawled on their maps.</p><p>Now he has a new least-favorite island.</p><p>He must have passed out on the beach because he wakes up tied to a chair. A very nice velvet-lined, sitting-on-clouds chair, but he was still Tied To A Damn Chair. And not in a sexy way, either.</p><p>A groan comes from his left, and Pete looks over to see Penny in the same situation. “What the fuck did you get me into this time, Adiyodi? Why am I still friends with you? It’s bad for my health.”</p><p>“I’m your only friend, remember?”</p><p>“Hey, I have other friends!”</p><p>“One-night-stands-that-are-occasionally-repeats don’t count, bro.”</p><p>“Fuck you.” He rolls his eyes at Penny’s answering smirk. “More trouble than you’re worth, you and your damn treasure.”</p><p>At that, Penny’s eyes go wide. “The plate!”</p><p>“What? What plate?”</p><p>“I found it! Right before the boat sank! There was a plate fragment, it had the double rams heads crest.”</p><p>Pete blinks. “No shit, for real?”</p><p>Penny twists to his left, as well as he can from his currently tied-up position. “Shit. They took my bag.”</p><p>“Of course they did.” Pete groans. “Do we even know who ‘they’ are?”</p><p>“My name is Irene. Irene McAllistair.”</p><p>Pete maintains that he Did Not shriek, thank you very much. He does almost tip the chair over as he twists as well as he can to see a woman standing in the open doorway. A tall blonde dressed in a sharp suit, the woman walks in and stands in front of him and Penny.</p><p>“Who the fuck are you?” Jesus, Penny.</p><p>“I just told you. Irene McAllistair.”</p><p>“McAllistair? As in McAllistair Island?”</p><p>“My family owns the island, yes.”</p><p>“And do you always tie up the people who visit your island?”</p><p>“You were trespassing on my beach, I’m just being cautious.”</p><p>“Not intentionally. My boat sank.”</p><p>He sighs internally at Penny’s tact -- or lack thereof. This is why Pete does all the talking in these situations.</p><p>The fact that there have been multiple of ‘these situations’ probably should have clued him in before now, honestly.</p><p>“We are terribly sorry for showing up on your beach the way we did, ma’am. We were out diving for oysters, looking for pearls, and must have left some papers too close to one of the lamps. We tried to put the fire out but weren’t quick enough to save the ship. We’ll get out of your hair as soon as you return our things to us, if you have a boat we can possibly rent to get to the next island?”</p><p>Please believe it, please believe it. It was the best lie he could come up with on short notice, especially without actually knowing how the boat sank.</p><p>Irene raises one perfectly-manicured eyebrow. “And the ceramic plate?”</p><p>Pete’s heart sinks, but he smiles as charmingly as he can. “The plate? Just a piece of ocean debris that we found, nothing of consequence. Doing our part to clean up the waters, removing human waste and all that.”</p><p>She looks from him to Penny and back again, doesn’t speak for a minute as she studies them. “I suppose I could get one of my staff to take you over to Welters Island. You should be able to get a boat to Brakebills there.”</p><p>“We would be much obliged, wouldn’t we, Pen?”</p><p>“Yes, that would be great. Can I have my bag back now?”</p><p>“Of course. There’s nothing of interest in there, as you said. I’ll have Skye bring it when she collects you to go to the boat.”</p><p>“Thank you, Ms. McAllistair. We are in your debt.”</p><p>Irene nods once and sweeps out of the room, leaving them for another five minutes until another woman, presumably the afore-mentioned Skye, returns and unties them. She returns Penny’s bag to him and leads them out of the room, down an opulently-decorated hallway and outside to a dock where a small boat is waiting.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>The boat ride is mostly silent, and Penny sits with a hand on his bag, staring out at the water as he listens to Pete fail over and over to get Skye to give him the time of day.</p><p>Skye is ignoring him as she guides the boat smoothly through the water. A tanned blonde with a high forehead and dark eyes, she’s hardly spoken a word except to tell them to follow her. Although she’s quiet, her eyes are intelligent and watchful. Penny notices that she never lets them out of her sight, and finds her looking at his bag a few too many times for him to believe Irene McAllistair’s claim that she thought the plate as worthless as Pete had said.</p><p>At least he got the plate back.</p><p>Now he just needs to figure out what to do next.</p><p>He needs more equipment. Diving gear. Maps of ocean currents.</p><p>He needs to get another boat. He doesn’t have any money for that, so he needs to find someone that will let him borrow their boat.</p><p>Who has a boat that he can borrow?</p><p>No one he knows, not that he knows many people on the islands.</p><p>He’s known Pete far longer than any of the islanders. A brash twelve-year-old in the system with a chip on his shoulder, he had been loitering around a pawnshop that Pete’s uncle owned. A mean old bastard, the man had accused him of stealing and had been about to call the cops when an older kid had barged in from a back room.</p><p>“There you are! I texted you hours ago, Penny, what took you so long? Hey Uncle Jay, we’re going over to the diner to work on a school project.” The other kid had grabbed his arm and steered him out the door. He had followed until they got out of sight of the pawnshop, and then yanked his arm free.</p><p>“Who the fuck are you? And who the fuck is ‘Penny’?”</p><p>“You are, dumbass, or did you really want to get arrested back there? The name’s Pete, nice to meet ya.”</p><p>He had stared at the hand that Pete was holding out as if it was a snake that was going to bite him. “The fuck do you want?”</p><p>“Dude, you really need to tone down the cursing if you want any adult to not instantly hate you on sight. I don’t want shit, you just looked like you could use an escape and I hate that bastard enough to help anyone who steals from him.”</p><p>“I didn’t steal from him!” Pete had raised an eyebrow at him, and he had scowled. He hadn’t stolen much. “Whatever, fuck you.”</p><p>“So, what’s your name, kid?”</p><p>“Don’t call me a kid, you’re barely older than I am!”</p><p>“So tell me your fucking name, or I’m just gonna keep calling you ‘Penny’.”</p><p>There was a brief silence before he had huffed and spit out, “William.”</p><p>Pete had cocked his head, looked him up and down, and said, “Nah. I think I’m gonna stick with Penny. Much cooler. Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s go find some food.”</p><p>He had almost resisted, but his stomach had chosen that moment to growl loudly and Pete had grinned triumphantly. Sighing, he had followed Pete to a nearby diner, and after the first week had given up on ever getting rid of the nickname.</p><p>Besides, he’d kinda liked it. Don’t tell Pete.</p><p>Penny is jolted out of memory lane by the boat stilling on the water and looks around to see that Skye had effortlessly docked at a pier in front of them. He had been watching the waves off the starboard side and hadn’t noticed the island in the distance growing until it was right in front of them.</p><p>Pete is thanking Skye for the ride, and trying to get a date one last time, so Penny grabs his bag and follows him off the boat and onto the dock of Welters Island.</p><p>"What the fuck do we do now? We don’t even have a fucking boat!”</p><p>Pete slides an arm around his shoulders, and Penny doesn’t even shrug it off. He’s used to this by now.</p><p>“Now, Penny? Now we eat, we drink, we flirt! Beautiful island, full of beautiful people! We put all the problems off until tomorrow.”</p><p>“With what money?”</p><p>“I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out, eh? We always do.”</p><p>Rolling his eyes, he lets Pete drag him down the catwalk towards civilization. Maybe he’ll be able to get a hold of Kady tomorrow.</p><p>He wouldn’t be able to get a ride back to Brakebills tonight, anyway.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady is sitting on the counter of the kitchen, legs swinging as she watches Josh knead the dough for some kind of pastry.</p><p>“So have you decided if you’re gonna stick around after the trip to the mainland or not?”</p><p>She sighs. “I don’t know yet. Margo said I could stay as long as I wanted. And it’s not like I have anything waiting for me on the mainland, since Penny and I sold almost everything to buy the boat and equipment.”</p><p>“Well, we dock at Brakebills Island in the morning, and then it’s a few days to the mainland. So you have some time to think about it.”</p><p>“Do you think it was stupid of me, to leave?”</p><p>“Nah.” Josh looks over at her as he presses his palms into the dough again and again. “Can you pass me the butter?”</p><p>She opens a cupboard and pulls out the requested butter, handing it over to him with a knife. “This isn’t the weed butter, is it?”</p><p>He laughs and shakes his head, and then pauses to sniff at the butter. “Ah, no. This is just regular butter. I think I used the last of the weed a few trips ago. No pun intended.”</p><p>Kady snorts. “Of course not. You’ve never made a pun ever in your life.”</p><p>He grins. “Me? Never. But in all seriousness, I think leaving to get a different perspective doesn’t do any harm. Yes, you broke things off with him, but you had several very good reasons for doing so. I mean, you said he had gotten your boat impounded, and then you all ended up in jail because he refused to pay the fine! And you spend 24/7 in each other’s company on that boat, that’s never good for any couple.”</p><p>“Margo and Eliot don’t seem to mind it.”</p><p>Josh shrugs. “Eliot and Margo aren’t a normal couple. They’re not even dating, technically. Margo has Fen, and Eliot has a string of repressed ‘straight’ party boys to play with when he needs a change of pace. You and Penny were stuck on a boat with just the two of you.”</p><p>And Pete, whenever he would pop up from whatever shady thing he went off to do. But even his special brand of smarmy charisma wasn’t enough to curtail the tension that had been growing for months.</p><p>“That’s true, I guess. We’ve had some rocky patches in the last two years. I just got so tired of always thinking ‘this time we’ll find it,’ and then never finding anything! Eighteen months of research and dives, and we never found so much as a hint of treasure. Constant disappointment is a depressing companion.”</p><p>“So it’s good that you took a break. You didn’t burn that bridge completely, not really. Besides, we’ve loved having you on the Muntjac for the last couple of weeks.”</p><p>“I’ve had a lot of fun. You wouldn’t think anyone would be able to make a living as an actual Party Barge, but Eliot is very good at what he does. Drunk co-eds will pay a surprising amount of money to drink on a ship for a weekend.”</p><p>“See, it’s the length of the trip that makes it worthwhile. No one can afford a whole week of a normal cruise, but three days of ocean scenes, an island bonfire beach party one night, and some amazing mojitos? It’s perfect for the young adult crowd that just wants to have some fun for a bit without breaking their entire bank. Plus, El and Margo make perfect hosts and know how to keep the attention, and the wallets, of twenty to thirty co-eds.”</p><p>Kady smirks. “Yeah, that they do. Why aren’t we picking up a new group after this one leaves, anyway?”</p><p>Every month we do a loop back to the mainland for a larger supply run than the Islands can handle, and use the extra time to do a deep clean. We don’t take tourists to or from the mainland, we leave that to the larger ships. It’s cheaper for everyone in the long run and then the tourists have more pocket money to spend.”</p><p>“Sounds like you have it all figured out, huh?”</p><p>“Of course. Most of it was Margo’s planning, your sister has a good head for that kind of planning.”</p><p>“Don’t I know it.” She grins. “She’s been the mastermind behind all our shenanigans ever since our moms met.”</p><p>Kady sighs as she slips down from the counter. “Speaking of Margo, I should probably go find her. I said I’d help set up the decorations for the party tonight.”</p><p>Distracted with looking for a rolling pin now that the dough has apparently been sufficiently kneaded, Josh hums in acknowledgment and waves his fingers as she heads for the door.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ MARGO ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Pulling a pile of tablecloths from the supply closet closest to the room El had dubbed ‘The Official Party Kids Clubroom of the Muntjac’, Margo turns and sees Kady coming down the hall.</p><p>“Perfect timing Kadycat, take these into the PKC. I’ll be right behind you.” She hands off the dark blue cloth and turns back to grab several strings of faerie lights and the neon ‘TADA’ sign that Eliot always insists on putting up, to make the last night extra special for their guests. Margo thinks it’s a little tacky but can’t disagree that the pictures the tourists take with the sign make up a good portion of their online profile.</p><p>She heads into the room and sets her bundle of lights down on the bar near the little electric piano. Kady has started putting the tablecloths on the half-dozen tables scattered around, all different shapes and sizes to fit around the various couches, chairs, and benches. Really there to just protect the dark wood from alcohol spills, Margo had been the one who had chosen the color to match the blue walls. It made the room look more intimate and inviting, especially with the help of the lights they were going to string up.</p><p>Grabbing another tablecloth from Kady’s stack, she weaves gracefully around the room to the next bare table.</p><p>“I can’t believe Eliot likes that sign. It seems a little much, don’t you think?”</p><p>Margo snorts at her sister. “I’ve told him the same thing several times. But our El is insistent that it’s ‘charming’, not tacky. The faerie lights help blend it all together, I’ve found. Besides, he’s right on one thing. The tourists love it.”</p><p>“That’s because they’ve been drinking for three days straight.” Kady rolls her eyes, and Margo laughs as they grab the longest tablecloth to spread over the main bar.</p><p>“You’re not wrong. And it’s not like they’re going to stop tonight, with El’s Signature Cocktail.”</p><p>“You’re going to poison them all on that shit.” Kady had taken one sip of the green drink on her first night and had emphatically announced that she was sticking to whiskey. Margo had laughed at her expression and poured a double shot, watching as her little sister downed it with a grin.</p><p>“They love it. El has the recipe perfected for maximum drinkage with minimum nausea afterward. Can’t do a thing for the morning hangover, unfortunately. But no one’s complained about that too much with the free breakfast.”</p><p>“And the Bloody Marys that come with it,” Kady smirks and straightens up, nose in the air in her best haughty Eliot impression. “‘The best cure for a hangover is another drink’, is that what he says?”</p><p>“It is.” Tablecloths dispersed properly, Margo grabs the faerie lights and begins unwinding them. Passing the first one to her sister, Kady starts draping them along the front of the bar, inconspicuously attached to little hooks drilled into the wood.</p><p>Margo lays the untangled lights on a table and grabs the stepladder from behind the bar to begin stringing up the lights along the edges of the low ceiling in the same way. She doesn’t look over at her sister as she says as casually as she can, “So, our next trip is to the mainland. Any thoughts on what you’re going to do?”</p><p>The dramatic groan from the other side of the room makes her grin.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady finishes checking out the last of the tourists and then grabs her own purse and heads out into the sunlight. She walks along the dock, weaving in and out of the crowds of tourists, vendors, and ship staff. Free to wander on her own for a few hours before meeting a friend for lunch, she browses through the stalls of the open market that operates near the docks every day.</p><p>Brakebills Island is the largest island of the Keys archipelago and the only one that has direct passage to the mainland. Most tourists get to Brakebills and then find boats or cruises to take them to whichever other islands they want to see, although there are plenty of things to do on the main island itself.</p><p>Brakebills University is a little off the beaten path, and is really more of a library than a proper university. Most of the ‘students’ there are from the mainland and only stay for a semester or two, working on various research projects that might relate to the Keys and their culture and history. Kady had met the headmistress’ daughter Harriet several years earlier during her first stay at the island when she had been visiting with Margo and Marina.</p><p>Harriet had seen that she was looking up blueprints for the Brakebills Museum and had even pretended to believe the story that she was ‘super into architecture’. After meeting Penny at the museum and learning about the lost treasure, they had visited the university’s library many times, researching the Fillorian and the islands to try and discover where the treasure could be. Every couple of weeks when Kady was in port, Harriet would free her busy librarian schedule for a lunch catch-up.</p><p>This is the first time she would be visiting without Penny at her side in a long while. It’s weird to think that she’s done looking for the hidden treasure.</p><p>But she is. She’s tired of the constant searching, the disappointment. Never finding a single hint of Chatwin’s ship or the Fillorian treasure, even with the carefully-mapped-out grid search. She’s glad that she doesn’t have to worry about permits or licenses anymore, or random coast guard searches to make sure that they aren’t running drugs or whatever bullshit story they’d be told.</p><p>She tells herself she doesn’t miss him. That it was his obsessive planning that drove her away. He took too many risks, even with all the planning. He never wanted to do anything except look for the damn treasure. Kady just wanted to take a day off every now and then.</p><p>But she knows part of it was her fault. They both have quick tempers, and they could only go so many days, weeks, months with no reward before those tempers got the better of them. Being tossed into the local jail over Penny’s refusal to pay a fine for accidental trespassing had been the last match set to a powderkeg, and it had exploded into epic shouting matches all weekend.</p><p>Kady had stormed out as soon as they had been released, not even waiting to get the Chickady back from the impound before she hired a fishing boat to take her to Brakebills, and joined Margo on the Muntjac.</p><p>Well, there was nothing she could do about that now. She needs to start looking at real options, either on the islands or on the Muntjac, or she needs to think about heading back to the mainland.</p><p>Maybe Harriet would give her a job at the library.</p><p>She laughs quietly to herself as she heads to the cafe near the university where Harriet likes to meet. She can’t imagine herself as a librarian.</p><p>Plus, then she might run into Penny again.</p><p>She shakes her head to get her thoughts away from her ex-boyfriend and opens the door to the Neitherland Cafe.</p><p>She sees Harriet sitting in their usual corner booth and waves hello.</p><p>And then she sees who’s sitting with her friend, signing something clumsily but enthusiastically. </p><p>She turns on her heel and walks straight back out of the cafe as Penny turns and shouts her name.</p><p>She’ll make it up to Harriet later.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Penny walks up the pier towards the Muntjac, having been thoroughly scolded by Harriet for being an idiot. She had said that Kady was staying with her sister, and Penny cursed himself for not thinking of that when he was looking for her after she left. He had only met Margo a few times and had seen the family resemblances that she and Kady shared, sharp tongues and dry sarcastic wit.</p><p>He’s starting to regret coming in the first place, given the glares and crossed arms that he’s currently getting from the women on the deck of the boat. Kady is nowhere to be seen, but Margo and a petite brunette are staring down at him as he slowly walks up the gangplank.</p><p>“What the fuck are you doing here, asshole?”</p><p>He winces, hearing icy steel in her voice. “It’s great to see you too, Margo. Look, I know, I’m an idiot. Is Kady aboard?”</p><p>“Only if you plan to beg for her forgiveness.” The brunette speaks up when Margo just raises one eyebrow. She may have been smaller than the other girl, but she’s still glaring daggers at him.</p><p>“If she’ll let me. I tried earlier, but she walked out before I could get a single word out. Not that I blame her, she has every right to be pissed.”</p><p>“Well, at least you’re able to admit when you’re wrong.” Margo waves a hand admitting him onboard, and he heads up to stand in front of the women. “If Kady decides to take you back, don’t cock it up next time. Just do better.”</p><p>He nods. “Yes ma’am. And ma’am.” He looks over at the other girl questioningly, and Margo seems to catch his meaning.</p><p>“This is my girlfriend Fen. Fen, meet Penny.”</p><p>“It’s nice to meet you, Penny! If you hurt Kady again, I will stab you.” Fen’s smile is friendly and at odds with the slightly-frightening statement, and Penny blinks.</p><p>“Uh, yeah, it’s nice to meet you too, Fen. Um. I will try my best to not be in a situation where stabbing is necessary.”</p><p>Fen nods as if that’s all she can ask for. “Kady’s down below. The second floor, fifth door on the right.”</p><p>He smiles at her. “Thank you.”</p><p>He nods once more at Margo but can still feel her watching him as he heads for the stairs.</p><p>Knocking on Kady’s door, he hears the one voice that he had missed for weeks.</p><p>“Come in.”</p><p>Penny opens the door but waits, standing in the doorway. “Hey, uh, it’s me.”</p><p>She’s sitting on her bed with a book that she puts down at the sound of his voice. He’s on the receiving end of yet another glare, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to throw him out. He steps inside and shuts the door, moving to sit at the desk chair across the room.</p><p>“Look, I was a dick. A complete idiot. I’m really fucking sorry, okay? You were right, I wasn’t paying attention to us. I can do better. Just give me a chance.”</p><p>She’s still not saying anything, only looking at him impassively. Time to bring out the big guns. Metaphorically. She was a better shot than him anyway.</p><p>“I found proof.”</p><p>Her eyebrows rise in confusion. “Proof that you’re a douche?”</p><p>He smirks. “There was plenty of that. No, I found a plate fragment. It has the rams crest on the back.”</p><p>Kady’s eyes go wide and she sits up straighter. “Fuck, really?”</p><p>He nods, breaking into a grin and unable to contain his excitement. “Yeah. Pete and I found it, near McAllistair Island.”</p><p>“Where is it, can I see?”</p><p>Penny pulls the wrapped ceramic from the bag still slung across his shoulder and hands it to her. He watches as she unwraps it, carefully turning the plate over and running a finger over the engraved seal.</p><p>She looks up at him, and he sees the gleam in her eyes that had been missing for weeks if he had just paid attention instead of being stuck inside his own head.</p><p>He isn’t ready for the punch to his shoulder. He probably deserves it.</p><p>“Oww, what the fuck, woman?”</p><p>“That’s for being a jerk.”</p><p>Another punch, one that he sees coming but takes anyway. Because he definitely deserves it.</p><p>“And that’s for not starting off with this, for fuck’s sake.” She waves the fragment in his face, and he grins sheepishly.</p><p>“Sorry. Fen said I had to apologize, I didn’t want to give her a reason to stab me.” She huffs a laugh, and Penny takes a deep breath. “So, what do you say? One last job?”</p><p>“I’m still mad at you. But let’s go, I miss my boat.”</p><p>His heart sinks. Ah, fuck.</p><p>“Umm. About that.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady walks onto the deck, dragging Penny by the arm as she heads over to where Margo and Fen are standing with Eliot.</p><p>“El. We have a few days before you need to head up to the mainland, right?”</p><p>He blinks at her, then over to Penny, gives him an up-and-down, and looks back again. “Yes? Why, want us to leave you here to get your shag on?”</p><p>She rolls her eyes. She should have been expecting that.</p><p>“No. We need to borrow the Muntjac. Just for a day or two. Maybe three.” Kady looks over at Penny for confirmation, and can practically see him doing the distance calculations in his head before he quirks his lips in a ‘yeah, probably’ gesture. Good enough, she’ll take it. “Four days. We’ll have her back to you in four days.”</p><p>“Why do you need my ship? Doesn’t he have one?” Margo is looking at Penny with a suspicious glint in her eye.</p><p>“It’s … a little bit … unavailable at the moment.” He looks at Kady for help, and she sighs.</p><p>“Some crazy bitch blew it up. They think.”</p><p>Eliot laughs, and then looks at their faces. “Oh shit. You’re being serious.”</p><p>“Well, she tied us up after Pete and I swam to her island after cutting ourselves loose from the sinking ship, so yeah. Pretty sure that’s not normal behavior for non-crazy people when someone washes up on their island.”</p><p>Margo whistles. “Damn, boy. You sure know how to find trouble. I can’t even be surprised, given how you and Kady met.”</p><p>Kady waves her hand impatiently. “That’s not the point. The point is, can we borrow the ship, Eliot? We need to get going if we’re going to make it there in time.”</p><p>“Make it where?”</p><p>“There’s a cluster of islands near Crazy Lady Island that could be where the Fillorian treasure is hidden, although we need to narrow it down somehow.” Kady shrugs. They could work on that on the way if Eliot has the maps she remembers seeing in the nav room.</p><p>“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Margo swears, rolling her eyes. “That damn treasure, again?!”</p><p>“What treasure?” Fen pipes up, and Penny takes a breath before Kady puts a hand up to stall him.</p><p>“Look, there’s no time. We need to get going if we’re going to make it in time. Please, El.”</p><p>He looks from her to Penny, then has a silent conversation with Margo that lasts almost a whole minute. They turn back in unison.</p><p>“On one condition.” Kady nods, prepared to do any number of favors in the foreseeable future. “We get to come with you.”</p><p>Wait, what?</p><p>“What?” Penny looks just as confused as she is. She hadn’t thought they wanted anything to do with their ‘faerie tale treasure hunt’, as Margo had called it once.</p><p>“We come with. Me, Margo, Fen.”</p><p>Fen clears her throat. “Um, Julia’s going to be here in an hour.”</p><p>Margo tilts her head and nods. “And Fen’s friend. If she wants.”</p><p>Kady nods. “Okay, if you want to come, I’m not going to stop you. Are you sure?”</p><p>They all nod. Eliot grins. “It’ll be a nice break. Looking for a buried pirate treasure could be a fun adventure.”</p><p>She groans internally and puts a hand on Penny’s arm to keep him from starting a well-rehearsed rant about how it Wasn’t A Pirate Treasure. He catches her eye and rolls his own eyes, and she grins.</p><p>“Alright, let’s get this ship on the seas. We have a treasure to find!”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>They had to wait for Fen’s friend, of course. But that gives Penny time to look over Eliot’s collection of maps, which are far more extensive than he had expected. Apparently one of the part-time staff is an amateur cartographer, and had drawn very-detailed and to-scale maps of everywhere he had been around the islands.</p><p>The maps of the area near McAllistair Island are less densely populated, but they still show a cluster of smaller islands that Penny and Kady agree could be where the Fillorian could have been on her way to pick up the stashed treasure hoard before she sank, to send the plate fragment over towards Irene McAllistair’s.</p><p>He wishes they still had the documents that they had taken from the museum, but those had been on the Chickady. They would have to make do since they didn’t have time to go all the way across the island to the museum. Especially since those documents hadn’t exactly been available to the public in the first place.</p><p>Penny hears a commotion out on the deck and leaves the maps to go see if Fen’s friend has finally arrived so they can be on their way.</p><p>There’s another girl on the ship, hugging Fen, so he can only assume that she’s the much-awaited Julia. Long hair pulled into a ponytail, she has a bag at her feet that’s bursting at the seams with papers and folders. Margo had told them that she had just finished studying at the university, doing some kind of research project on the longevity of island ruins.</p><p>Eliot is standing on the deck with a drink in his hand, and Penny walks over to stand next to him as Fen and Julia talk over each other in their greeting.</p><p>“So, can we head out now?”</p><p>Eliot takes another sip of his drink, some bright green concoction that Kady had taken one look at before turning away and making gagging sounds. “Yeah, I just talked to the rest of the staff and gave them shore leave for the next few days. Except for Josh, the cook. He wants to come with us.”</p><p>Penny sighs. “Fine, whatever. Let’s go, then.”</p><p>He turns to leave, but Fen walks up before he can make his escape down the stairs.</p><p>“Penny! This is my friend Julia. Julia, this is Penny, Margo’s sister Kady’s … ex-boyfriend?” She crinkles her nose in confusion, and Penny shrugs. Hell if he knows.</p><p>“Something like that, at least until Kady tells me otherwise. Nice to meet you, now let’s get going.”</p><p>“Right. Fen said something about a treasure?”</p><p>He sighs. “Yeah. Look, why don’t we get on the way and I’ll explain everything to all you guys at one time so I don’t have to keep repeating myself.”</p><p>Fen nods, bouncing a little in place. It was kind of adorable. “Okay! I’ll go tell El we can head out, and we’ll get everyone to meet us in the PKC for storytime once we get out of the harbor. Julia, take Penny with you, you know where it is.”</p><p>Penny starts to open his mouth to protest that he was not Telling A Story, but gives up as Fen bounds away towards the nav room where Eliot had presumably vanished to while he had been distracted talking to the girls. He turns to Julia and sees her smirking at him, so he scowls. “What the fuck is a PKC?”</p><p>The Party Kids Clubhouse, it turns out, is where everyone hangs out when there’s nothing else to do. Julia leads him down the hall into the large room and sets her overflowing bag down next to one of the couches.</p><p>There’s an awkward silence for a minute as Penny leans against a table taking in the room until Kady and Margo walk in with another boy. He assumes this is Josh the cook, since he still has a smear of flour on one arm.</p><p>“What up, I’m Josh Hoberman. You must be the asshole. Don’t think just because she’s forgiven you that you get to be a dick again. We know where you sleep.”</p><p>Kady groans. “What the fuck Josh.”</p><p>He shrugs unapologetically. “What? He ditched you.”</p><p>“Technically I ditched him. And he did apologize.”</p><p>Penny wishes he could be anywhere else right about now, but they’re blocking the path to the door. Julia breaks into their conversation and brings it back around to introductions.</p><p>“Hi, I’m Julia Wicker. It’s nice to meet you, Josh.”</p><p>With that, Kady and Margo introduce themselves to Julia, and they all settle down on various couches and chairs to wait for the others. Margo heads to the bar and gets drinks going, normal ones thankfully instead of Eliot’s apparently-legendary ‘party brews’, and soon Eliot sweeps in with Fen on his heels.</p><p>“Okay, so this treasure. Penny, Kady, take it away.”</p><p>Kady clears her throat and begins.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>The Key Islands make up the seven largest islands nearest to the mainland, but there are hundreds of smaller islands that make up the entire archipelago. Most people just call them the Keys now, but when the islands were first settled, they had a different name. One that came from the language of the people who lived there: the Fillorians.</p><p>The Fillory Islands had a thriving culture of its own before men came from the mainland and ‘discovered’ the natives there. The islanders traded with one another, prayed to their twin ram-headed gods Ember and Umber, danced, laughed, loved.</p><p>At least that’s how the present-day Islanders interpreted the scraps of writings and stories that were passed down through the generations. There was so little of that culture left, and it was all because of a man named Martin Chatwin.</p><p>Chatwin was a ship captain who was among the first group of explorers to ‘discover’ the islands. Legend has it that he was a ruthlessly charismatic man who had gained the trust of the natives quickly with pretty gifts and prettier words.</p><p>We only know Martin’s side of the story through letters that he sent to his sister Jane on the mainland. He wrote to her of the savages, of their strange language and their even stranger gods. Most importantly to him, he wrote about the gold and jewels that the islanders traded back and forth.</p><p>He was obsessed with the wealth of the islands and began hoarding as much of it as he could. He bragged to Jane about pulling cons on the Fillorians, trading them bronze and iron trinkets for their gold ingots and emeralds. He even renamed his ship The Fillorian, supposedly as a sign of respect for the islanders even as his letters home prove differently.</p><p>He couldn’t carry all of his treasure hoards on one ship, so he buried it on one of the islands. No one knows which one, and he only mentions vague directions in his letters home. We know that he was going to eventually bring the treasures back to the mainland, based on his last letters to Jane. Before he left, though, he decided to take final actions on the unsuspecting Fillorians.</p><p>He swept through their islands in one last whirlwind of terror, this time taking anything that wasn’t bolted down. Statues of their gods, paintings, jewelry, even bone- and abalone-made cookware and decorations. He took anything that could be sold as an ‘island curiosity’.</p><p>The islanders were devastated, and old legends say they prayed to Ember and Umber to strike down the man who had taken their lives and turned them upside-down. </p><p>Some people think the gods heard them, others think they just got lucky. Whatever the case, the Fillorian vanished in a terrible storm several days later and neither she nor her captain were seen again.</p><p>Kady finishes her tale and takes a long drink from the glass of water Penny had put at her elbow. “So, questions?”</p><p>Fen’s friend Julia leans forward. She had listened intently to the story, and Kady could almost see the wheels turning as she thought.</p><p>“Is that Martin Chatwin the same one that Chatwin Sea is named for? I thought he was just an explorer, not some ruthless conqueror.”</p><p>Penny snorts, and Kady puts a hand in his arm to remind him that these people don’t know the history as well as they do. He glances at her before looking back at Julia. “History is always written by the winners. Chatwin sent back sketches and drawings of gorgeous island paradises to the mainland along with his letters to Jane, and those drawings became public knowledge after Jane donated them to a mainland museum before her own death. The next wave of explorers renamed the sea for their brave captain who had been lost at sea years before.”</p><p>“So the, um, the Fillorians traded with new people again after that disaster?” This question was from Josh.</p><p>Kady shrugged. “It had been almost fifty years, as far as we can tell. The next generations of islanders had grown up hearing about the evil Captain Chatwin and the loss of their cultural treasures, but they probably put as much stock in those tales as we do in fairy tales. We don’t know much about the islanders’ side of the story other than what has been passed down over the years, so we can’t possibly know their reasoning for certain.”</p><p>“And you want to find this treasure and, do what with it? Buy your own island?”</p><p>Penny straightens from his relaxed slouch next to Kady and glares at Eliot. “Return it to the fucking people it fucking belongs to, because I’m not a fucking bastard! It doesn’t belong to anyone but the Islanders.”</p><p>Kady clears her throat and everyone looks over at her. “Look. We just want to find the treasure first, preferably before that McAllistair bitch. She clearly knew the plate was important, and if Penny’s right she’s probably looking for the treasure right now. We’re racing against the clock here, people.”</p><p>Penny nods and looks at the assembled faces with a smirk. “So, who’s up for a treasure hunt?”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ JULIA ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Julia listens to the entire tale, her mind racing at the thoughts of an entire culture’s missing treasure. She’d heard of the legend of the Fillorian from her professors, but they had always brushed it aside as a wive’s tale that only had a glimmer of historical value due to the name of the Chatwin Sea. Architecture professors aren’t usually the type to go after a mythical buried treasure, even if their students are intrigued.</p><p>They had obviously never heard the story the way that the dark-haired beauty in front of her was telling it. Julia watches as the girl — Kady, her mind reminds her — speaks confidently and uses her whole being to tell the tale. Her hands fly as she maps out the way Martin Chatwin stole ruthlessly from the ancient Fillorians, her tone shifting as her eyes glint dangerously in outrage on behalf of a people centuries before.</p><p>Kady ends the tale in the captivating whisper of a storyteller who knows their audience is paying attention to every syllable, and Julia looks around at the others as she takes a glass of water from Penny. Her possibly-ex-boyfriend, Julia’s mind reminds her helpfully, and she rolls her eyes internally.</p><p>“So, questions?”</p><p>Julia can’t stop the first question from coming out, and Penny’s eyes blaze with righteous anger before softening at a touch from Kady. He looks at Julia as he replies, and she can’t help noticing the same passion in his answer as in Kady’s story. They both care deeply about this piece of almost-forgotten history.</p><p>She listens to the others’ questions and winces as Penny curses at Eliot before Kady calms him. It was a fair question, and Julia wonders what his history with the islanders was for him to have such a strong reaction.</p><p>Everyone agrees to the treasure hunt, and Julia halfway listens as they begin discussing practical details and equipment they would need. At the mention of needing to find a boat with diving equipment, she tunes back in with a jolt.</p><p>“I know someone with a boat that I’m almost certain has diving equipment on it.” Everyone looks at her, and she shrugs. It was true. Alice’s parents had been on a diving phase at one point a year or so back, and Alice always complains that they never throw anything away or sell it when they move onto their next big thing. “Rich people. Her parents are very eccentric, they won’t even notice if it’s missing for a few days.”</p><p>“How do you know?”</p><p>“They didn’t notice when Ali, Q, and I borrowed the camper that’s parked in their backyard for an entire week to go sightseeing around the island. They just said something about the garden looking ‘less anachronistic’ and decided the trailer should stay in another section of their massive property when we got back.”</p><p>Eliot’s eyebrows raise as he mouths ‘anachronistic?’ to Margo, who shrugs.</p><p>“They were in a Roman phase at the time, and the modern camper ruined the aesthetic,” Julia explains, and Penny snorts with a disbelieving shake of his head. “I told you. Rich people. Very weird. But they have a boat, which it sounds like we can use?”</p><p>Kady and Penny talk it over with eyebrow lifts and some hand motions that make no sense to Julia, maybe some kind of code? Margo snorts at something and Kady looks over at her with a grin, so she at least must understand part of it.</p><p>They finish their silent conversation and turn back to the others as Penny gives Julia a nod. “Yeah, call them. We’ll figure out a central location for them to meet us, if can we borrow your maps, Eliot?”</p><p>Eliot waves his hand in permission as he takes a sip of his drink, and Julia excuses herself to go find a phone with service in the islands.</p><p>Quentin is going to love this.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady writes down the navigation coordinates for the spot that she and Penny decides is a good middle-of-the-area location after pouring over maps and current charts for almost an hour, and goes to find Julia. She finds the other girl up on the deck, the ship’s SAT phone in hand as she stares out at the Brakebills dock.</p><p>“Did you reach your friend?”</p><p>Julia turns as she nods. “Yeah, Quentin said he would ask Alice if the boat is available. I’m just waiting for him to text me back. Is that the meet spot?”</p><p>She looks at the paper in Kady’s hand, and Kady passes it over.</p><p>“It’s the best we could come up with on short notice. We would be able to narrow it down more if, well. Nevermind.”</p><p>Kady shakes her head, wishing once again for the notes and research that was lost when the Chickady was sunk. Although... Harriet had put some their photo scans on the cloud last year...</p><p>“You look like you just had an idea.” She looks up at Julia’s raised eyebrow and quirks one of her own in reply.</p><p>“Can your friend get onto the cloud from where he is? Like the, uh, digital cloud.”</p><p>She shrugs. “Probably. Q always has some kind of tech with him, and he’s always trying to fix things. I mean, he jerry-rigged his phone to pick up sat calls without the carrier fees. He can get some files off the cloud for you. Got the account info?”</p><p>Kady scribbles the information down on the paper Julia passes back to her, and then Julia texts everything to her friend.</p><p>She gets a message back and snorts, laughing softly. Kady makes a questioning noise, and Julia shows her the text message on the screen.</p><p>&gt;&gt; Can I? Please, Jules, gimme a break. I’m an all-access kind of guy, you know that.</p><p>“He’ll get your files, don’t worry.” Juia grins as Kady laughs, letting out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. She doesn’t remember what exactly is on that server, but anything is better than nothing, right?</p><p>Another text on the phone.</p><p>“And we have ourselves a boat!”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>They eat dinner that night on the deck, pulling pushed-together tables up to a few couches. Penny lets the conversation wash over him as he eats until someone says his name.</p><p>“What?” He looks up and finds everyone looking at him.</p><p>“I said, how did you come to hear about this whole treasure thing?” Eliot is lounging in a chair with yet another drink in his hand, although Fen and Margo had at least made him eat first.</p><p>“Oh.” Penny wonders how much he should share with all these people. He doesn’t know them. But they did decide to help him, and Kady had vouched for them. She was a pretty good judge of character.</p><p>“My mom was born in the Keys. She came to the mainland with her family when she was a teenager. She used to tell me stories about living in paradise and how wonderful everything was there, so different from our lives on the mainland. She always said she would take me someday, but, uh, that didn’t happen.”</p><p>“Why not?” Fen asks the question quietly as Penny pauses, not sure how to continue.</p><p>She died. I ended up in the system. Bounced around a bunch, eventually aged out. Didn’t have anything going for me on the mainland, so I came here. With Pete.”</p><p>“Ooh, who’s Pete?” Margo wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “Old boyfriend?”</p><p>Penny leers back. “Sometimes. He’s my best friend, we’ve known each other since we were kids.”</p><p>"So, uh.” Josh breaks in with a question of his own. “How did you and Kady meet?”</p><p>Penny grins. “Oh, that’s quite a story. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”</p><p>Everyone leans in closer, food momentarily forgotten, and Penny looks at Kady for permission. It’s her story too, after all.</p><p>She motions for him to go ahead with a long, dramatic sigh that is completely at odds with the excited gleam in her eye. ‘You tell wrong, then my turn’ her hands add, and he shrugs. He could work with that.</p><p>“Alright. We begin on a hot summer night on the mainland. Pete’s uncle owns a pawnshop that he let Pete work at, and one day a young lady named Plum came in with a bunch of her family’s heirlooms. No one wanted them, she said, and Uncle Jay took them off her hands for a steal.”</p><p>“Pete was given the job to categorize everything. A few boxes of bric-a-brac, a desk, some china. Nothing too special, until he came across an engraved letter opener.”</p><p>Penny pauses for effect. “The name on the letter opener — was Chatwin.”</p><p>Fen and Josh gasp, but everyone else just rolls their eyes, because obviously. Spoilsports. Penny shakes his head a little before continuing.</p><p>“Pete knew about the Chatwin Sea, he had helped me find a map of the Islands when I told him I wanted to go there a few years earlier.”</p><p>Katy snorts. “You mean he stole it.”</p><p>“Okay, yeah. We stole it. Whatever. Anyway, we figured out that this lady was Jane Chatwin’s great-great-something granddaughter. So we searched through the stuff she brought, looking for anything that might have clues about the ship and its treasure. We knew there were letters between the siblings because the sketches of the Islands that had ended up in one of the mainland museums had ‘your dearest brother, Martin’ and shit above them like he was finishing his letters with the sketches.”</p><p>“And then we hit the jackpot when we searched the desk. There was a locked drawer that Plum had apparently never been able to get open.”</p><p>“Let me guess, you picked the lock?” Eliot drawls, and Penny blinks at him.</p><p>“Obviously? It’s not like it was difficult.”</p><p>Kady and Margo snicker at that, and Penny waits for them to stop laughing before continuing.</p><p>“We found his letters. Well, some of them. The ones that Jane had decided were too indelicate for a museum, apparently. Martin talks about the wealth of the savage natives, and some of the islands he’s explored. Unfortunately, he never bothers to name them, instead giving descriptions like ‘third island past crescent bay’ and bullshit like that. Apparently the Fillorians’ names for their islands were too hard to remember.”</p><p>“So, did you figure out where he was keeping the treasure?” Julia pipes up, getting straight to the point when Penny pauses for too long.</p><p>He shakes his head. “No. There were too many inconsistencies, missing pages that had ended up in the museum that had half of a direction or something like that. But we had clues that could be narrowed down if we could physically check the islands ourselves.”</p><p>“Did you go back to the museum? The one that had the drawings?” Josh asks, and Penny nods.</p><p>“Yeah. Well, we tried to. Turns out, the display of Chatwin’s sketches had been loaned out to a local museum on the Islands for an indefinite amount of time. Part of a way to bring more tourism or something, I guess.”</p><p>“So you came to the Keys.” Eliot motions grandly all around them.</p><p>Penny nods. “Yeah. We came to visit the museum and saw the exhibit, but it turns out they only had a few of the pages on display. The rest was hidden in the back archives of the building, not for public use.”</p><p>“So you … you went to steal them?” Fen asks hesitantly as she leans against a smirking Margo.</p><p>He smirks back at her. “Borrow. We borrowed them. And we even gave them back! They turned up on the mainland a few days later in Uncle Jay’s pawnshop and he got a nice finders fee for turning them in to the cops.”</p><p>“After you found them, which took you way longer than it should have.”</p><p>Penny glares at Kady without any real heat, she’ll never stop teasing him about that. At least she’s talking to him again. “Hey, not all of us are professional breaking-and-entering thieves! Get in, find the pages, get out. That was literally the entire plan.”</p><p>“You’re just lucky the security on the museum was total shit, and that we came along to help you find the pages.”</p><p>Penny sighs. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”</p><p>Josh breaks in. “Hold the phone, you were there too? What on earth were you doing there, Kady?”</p><p>It’s Kady’s turn to sigh this time, and Penny leans back and motions to her with a grin.</p><p>“Your turn.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady had been on Brakebills Island helping out a friend.</p><p>“Marina Andrieski has been a friend of mine, and Margo’s, for years.</p><p>“Yes, Josh, Margo knows her too. Hold on. Let’s back up.</p><p>“My mom Hannah runs a youth center on the mainland. She bought the building with the help of a lawyer she had met at a park one day when I was little. The lawyer, a young woman named Samira, was trapped in a loveless marriage to a rich bastard.</p><p>“Why? Because Samira had a daughter and she wanted her daughter to have the best life that she could give her.</p><p>“Shut up, Margo, I’m telling a story here. Besides, you know it’s true.</p><p>“Anyway, eventually Samira left the worthless bastard and brought Margo to live with mom and me.</p><p>“Mom worked as a youth counselor in some of the surrounding neighborhoods and Samira got a job at a struggling law firm. They were slowly saving up money to buy a proper house, to get married, but then one of the community centers had its funding ripped away by the assholes on the city council.</p><p>"So, Hannah and Samira pooled all their money, favors, and connections, and bought the building. We renovated it and turned it into a place where kids could come to escape, to learn, to heal.</p><p>“One of those kids was Marina Andrieski. She’s a genius, absolutely brilliant at working the system, even if she runs a little wild and hot-tempered.</p><p>“Yes, Eliot, she was that kind of hot too. And she can probably drink you under the table, so be careful what you wish for.</p><p>“She got into some trouble. A heist went wrong, and a debt to some rich white dude needed to be paid before something even worse happened.</p><p>“But he didn’t want the normal things people want from thieves. He wanted a medallion that was rumored to have magical properties or some bullshit. He called it an Emerson Alloy. There are only a handful in the world, and the closest one was on Brakebills Island.</p><p>“She came to me and Margo for help. We’ve been in our fair share of scrapes together, and she needed crew that she could trust. So we came up with a plan and rented a boat to bring us to the Keys.</p><p>“The blueprints were in the public library, the museum’s security was laughable, and it didn’t take us long to get the crystal. We would have been in and out in eighteen minutes, except we ran into an unexpected problem.</p><p>“You were totally a problem, Penny! Bumbling around like a bull in a china shop, trying to get into those back rooms? You were going to alert someone to the theft before we had time to get off the island! I’m still amazed you didn’t trip any alarms on your way in.</p><p>“Yes, yes, Pete hacked the security cameras. But he couldn’t hack the keypads on the archive doors, could he?</p><p>“Oh, stop pouting. Anyway. Marina and I took pity on the poor idiot who was trying to smash the doors open. We got him in and found the dusty old papers he was looking for.</p><p>“We took the crystal, the papers, and our stray, and we fucking booked it out of there. Marina split off to get back to the mainland with the Alloy, and I went with Penny to keep the idiot from getting himself caught on all of the cameras around the museum’s exterior that Pete hadn’t thought to hack.</p><p>“And, well, that’s that. Penny told me all about the treasure, and I stayed to help look for it. The end.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>The chatter dies down for a few minutes as Eliot and Margo get everyone refills on drinks and they all get comfortable again. Julia is the first one to break the silence, and Penny tunes back in from listening to the waves breaking against the side of the ship.</p><p>“So, where do you think the treasure is? Do you have a map?”</p><p>Penny reaches down to the bag at his side, and Kady snorts. She mutters something under her breath as Penny pulls out a rolled map, and he scowls over at her.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>She smirks at him. “I said of course you have the map with you. Do you have the plate too?”</p><p>He narrows his eyes at her and she starts cackling, Margo and Fen giggling at them from their seats not far away. Of course he does, safely wrapped up at the bottom of the bag. He wasn’t about to leave it for someone to steal, even if they’re in the middle of the sea.</p><p>“Can I see it?” Fen asks quietly after she stops giggling. She’s sitting on the floor near Margo’s sofa, having gotten up to help carry drinks but never making it back to her previous seat.</p><p>Penny sighs. “Sure.”</p><p>He hands the map over to Kady, who passes it over for Julia to take a look. Pulling the plate from his bag, he unwraps it until the ceramic is visible. Margo and Fen lean closer as he flips it over and shows off the double rams insignia stamped onto the dish.</p><p>“Wow. That’s gorgeous.” Margo is impressed, and Fen reaches out a hand to run her index finger lightly across the surface.</p><p>“I’ve never seen Ember and Umber facing away from each other.” Penny blinks at her, confused. He knows Ember and Umber are the twin gods, but how does Fen know that?</p><p>“She’s from the Keys.” Margo casually leans back on her couch as if she’s commenting on the weather.</p><p>“No shit, really?” Penny looks at Fen and she nods. “So you already knew all that.”</p><p>“Yeah, kinda. My dad told me the stories about the crusades, it pretty much lines up with what you said. I didn’t know he had written letters back to her sister, though. Da always told me the treasure was carted off to the mainland, I didn’t know that Chatwin was burying it.”</p><p>“That’s probably why no one was looking for it.” Julia looks up from the map to jump into the conversation. “If the islanders thought Chatwin was returning to the mainland between raids, they wouldn’t have any reason to go look for a buried treasure.”</p><p>Kady interrupts with a question of her own. “Is it true that the current insignia of the rams has them facing each other because the islanders wanted to remember the horrors they had endured?”</p><p>“I guess.” Fen shrugs. “They told us in school that they had created the facing-together seal to remind the people to stick together, but no one talks about the raids in school nowadays except as a fairy tale.”</p><p>“Of course not.” Kady rolls her eyes, and Penny knows she’s judging the school curriculum and the influences that the mainland’s laws probably have on their teachings. Governments never can leave well enough alone.</p><p>Penny excuses himself to go look at the map as Kady and Margo begin discussing the stupid laws that the mainland enforces on the islands. He’s heard them all before from Kady, who had once thought she’d become a cop on the mainland. He knows that Margo had been in school to be a lawyer at one point, too, so she was apparently just as passionate about the rules that governed the islands that were put in place by the overbearing mainland so just they could get more tourists.</p><p>Julia is putting a mark on the map for the coordinates that they had sent her friends. She looks up as he comes to stand next to her.</p><p>“Do you know which island in this cluster is the one? Did you have any clues from those letters or anything that helps to narrow it down?”</p><p>He shakes his head. “Not with us. We had some on the Chickady before she was sunk, but those were the only hard copies we had. Kady says your friend can maybe get some of the files that we had on the cloud?”</p><p>She nods. “Yeah, Q said he would try and print anything he could find and bring it with him and Alice.”</p><p>Penny grins. “Well, we might be back in business then! I’m fairly certain most of the letters and clues are on that drive. I only remember bits and pieces, Pete was better at finding the search locations. I don’t want to mark down potential spots only to realize it was four islands past the crescent moon bay instead of three or something stupid like that.”</p><p>Julia hums in agreement. “That makes sense. Well, we should meet up with them in less than a day, and then we can narrow down the possibilities.”</p><p>She rolls up the map carefully and Penny goes to put it back into his bag. He can’t wait until they reach the rendezvous spot. Hopefully her friend is as good as she says he is.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ JULIA ~~~</p><p> </p><p>The next day passes in an assortment of activities while they sail ever closer to the potential treasure. Julia already knew Fen of course, and had met El and Margo a dozen or so times, but the rest?</p><p>She learns that Josh makes The Best Banana Bread. Where did he get bananas from? She doesn’t know. But she and Penny spent almost ten minutes trying to determine if there are any wild species of bananas that might grow on the islands they’re headed to so that they can get Josh more after he says he used up all of his supplies.</p><p>She learns from Margo that what she thought was hand-wavey code was actually hand-wavey sign language, and watches from across the deck as Kady and Penny fight without saying a word. Their expressions flitter through emotions faster than Julia can keep track until one of them turns and storms off. But she also watches later as Penny says something with his hands that brings a soft smile to Kady’s face and results in a long hug that ends with a gentle smack on the back of his head.</p><p>And she doesn’t just watch them from afar. She joins Kady at the bow of the Muntjac, staring out at the waves. Julia listens as the other girl tells her about her life growing up, of listening to Margo tell her tales of pirates and sirens, of begging Hannah and Samira to take them to the coast just for a day but knowing that money was too tight. The surprise when Kady turned fourteen and newly-licensed Margo drove just the two of them three hours to get to the beach in Hannah’s old jeep.</p><p>Julia shares her own stories from growing up, with loving-but-distant parents who sometimes cared more about their success and careers than their own children. She tells her about meeting Quentin and finding a second family with his parents. Long nights spent reading fantasy novels and spinning tales of what their adventures would be if they were transported within the books’ pages.</p><p>She shivers from the brisk sea wind, and Kady laughs as she wraps an arm around her back, hugging Julia to her chest, says she’s sharing body heat to keep Julia warm. Julia blushes, but it is warmer so she stays. At least until Eliot walks over and tells them food is ready. She jumps away as if burned and then turns back, ashamed of the knee-jerk reaction, but Kady just smiles at her and shrugs.</p><p>She blushes again as she watches Penny reel Kady in the exact same way an hour later as they stand around the deck after eating, and looks away when Kady winks at her. She tries not to wonder what it’d feel like to be wrapped against Penny’s chest so securely, but can’t stop herself from remembering the feelings of safety and warmth she had felt in Kady’s hold.</p><p>She watches the others be freer with their physical affection than she has ever seen from her own family, or even from Q’s much more loving and supportive family. Eliot, Margo, and Fen share kisses and cuddles and hugs freely between themselves and the others, Julia included. Even Josh gets cheek kisses and hugs whenever he stops moving around the kitchen long enough for someone to catch him.</p><p>Kady hasn’t forgiven him fully yet, and Penny obviously knows it from the way he’ll disappear sometimes from the all-day party on the deck. Julia wanders into the PKC to get a blanket off the back of a couch and finds Penny sitting at the bar with an empty glass in front of him. He glances over as she walks in but doesn’t say anything.</p><p>Julia walks over and sits down next to him. They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, until Penny begins talking about how he fucked up. Julia agrees that yes, he did, and reminds him that he’s trying to change. He recognizes he was wrong and he’s working to fix it, and all he can do is give Kady time to decide what she wants.</p><p>He glances over at her, and Julia shrugs. She pays attention to people, that’s all. She doesn’t have experience with relationships like theirs, most of the guys she dated were assholes who didn’t care about her.</p><p>Any girls? She snorts when Penny asks and has to explain that her parents would have disowned her in two seconds flat if she were ever caught with a girl, so no. Not publicly, at least. The one girl she had fooled around with the most had been crushing on her best friend at the time, so that hadn’t worked out either.</p><p>Penny carefully wraps an arm around her waist as she talks and pulls her against his side, and she resists for almost half a minute before her head lands on his shoulder. He says that’s shitty, and kisses her forehead gently. She’s getting better at the random displays of affection, she thinks.</p><p>At least until Penny decides they’ve wallowed enough in depressing bullshit, and stands up without pulling his arm away. He grins as his other arm scoops her knees off the stool and she shrieks as he lifts her up and into his arms. She yells at him to put her down even as her hands instinctively grab around his neck, and he just laughs as he walks towards the door.</p><p>She scrambles off when he releases her as he sits down on a couch on the deck, but joins in with the rest of the group as they laugh even as she curses at him for being a jerk. She settles down on the other side of the couch, glaring, but she doesn’t really mean it.</p><p>She had felt as safe as she had imagined she would. She misses it already.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ JOSH ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Josh Hoberman is no idiot. He sees what’s going on here.</p><p>He watches people, and he reads them. He’s very good at it if he does say so himself.</p><p>His instincts have never been wrong before. It’s saved Eliot and Margo a lot of grief as he picks out the troublemakers on the cruises that need to be watched more carefully. So far everyone has been spared from whatever stupid tourist plan would have occurred had Eliot, Margo, or Fen been keeping a close eye on them.</p><p>But he also knows how to read his friends. He had watched Fen silently pine after Margo while ‘dating’ Eliot, so desperate to be that ‘sweet little girl’ her daddy could be proud of, the woman who had a husband and 2.4 kids and a white picket fence or whatever. Fen was naively blind to Eliot’s discomfort at first, until Josh sat her down one night with blueberry scones and laid it out straight for her. Well, laid it out gay, in this case. Semantics.</p><p>He’s glad they had figured out their shit. Their relationship might be unconventional but it works for them, so who is he to judge? Definitely not Josh Fucking Hoberman. As long as they’re all happy, they’re praising his cornbread and he’s happy.</p><p>He just wishes the rest of the group could get their shit together, because this is getting exhausting.</p><p>Kady, complaining about Penny and yet still madly in love with him. She’s already forgiven him, but she’s sticking it to the man and making him suffer and wait, as she should. Not for much longer though, if the cuddling is any hint.</p><p>Penny is actually a good guy. Josh had dragged him down to the kitchen for the obligatory shovel talk, and Penny had actually listened.</p><p>“If you hurt her again, I will cut off your finger, kill you, bury you, use your corpse as a fertilizer for tea leaves, and use your finger to stir my tea as I drink the resulting brew.”</p><p>Penny had gone a little pale, but the first question out of his mouth was ‘which finger?’ (The middle, obviously.) The second question had been ‘what kind of tea?’</p><p>Josh may have accidentally gone on a tangent about different teas and flavors for the next twenty minutes, which may have been part of Penny’s plan, but either way.</p><p>They had a nice jasmine tea to seal the pact of not needing to kill him because he’s not hurting Kady, and then Josh had shoed him out of the kitchen. He had work to do after all.</p><p>So their relationship is on the mend, and things seem to be looking up.</p><p>Enter Julia.</p><p>Josh is not quite sure what to make of her. She’s smart, she participates in group conversations, she’s quick with a sarcastic comment or funny comeback.</p><p>But she keeps herself distant. Well, she tries to.</p><p>And Josh gets it. Being the new person thrown at the messy affectionate dual chaos that is Eliot and Fen is bad enough. Throw Margo’s demanding ways into the mix, and it can make people uncomfortable with that sort of relationship.</p><p>But Julia doesn’t seem uncomfortable with Them and their Relationship. Which is good, because the world doesn’t need more judgment.</p><p>Rather, she shrugs off the arm that Eliot drapes around her shoulders because he is incapable of standing like a regular human being. She accepts the hugs from Fen, but only for a short amount of time before she gently pushes away.</p><p>And Josh doesn’t want her to put up with things that make her uncomfortable. Everyone has free will to not like things.</p><p>But.</p><p>He sees the way she watches the others’ easy affection. Eliot and Fen and Margo, Kady and Penny, even Josh himself gets in on the hugs every so often. Julia watches it all, and Josh can see the longing that flashes in her expression before she notices him watching and smoothes her expression blank.</p><p>She wants it. She just doesn’t know how to ask for it, or that she can.</p><p>He tells Margo, because she’ll know what to do.</p><p>“Just wait, Kady has a crush on her. Julia’s cute, if a little shy. She’ll act on it eventually.”</p><p>That ... well, that was actually news to Josh, but he guesses he can’t see everything. Plus, Margo has extra Sister Sense or something.</p><p>“What about Penny?”</p><p>Margo snorts. “He’ll be fine. He could use the competition. Or he can join in if they want. Penny seems to like smart, resourceful people, I’m sure Julia is right up his alley.”</p><p>Josh ultimately decides it’s not his business and goes back to his banana bread.</p><p>He does notice the conspiring between Penny and Julia about said banana bread, and thinks Margo might be onto something there.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ JULIA ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Julia is the first to see Alice’s ship.</p><p>Of course, that’s probably because she’s spent the last hour walking back and forth on the deck trying to burn off the excess energy caused by excitement. She hasn’t seen Q in three months, or Alice in longer.</p><p>And when they get here, hopefully Quentin has the files that Penny and Kady need. He’s never failed before, thank the gods. She would have had to restart her entire senior year project if Q hadn’t been able to get her corrupted hard drive to spit out her last saved version. How? Who knows. Julia has learned not to question the techie-magic, just be grateful for its existence.</p><p>She can see Q waving at her from the small deck of Alice’s parents’ boat. She waves back, hands high in the air.</p><p>“That your friend’s ship?”</p><p>Julia turns to see Penny leaning again the railing, and grins.</p><p>“Yup! That’s the Aeneas.” He raises an eyebrow, and Julia shrugs. “Her parents get into weird obsessive phases, they had a Roman one a while. Aeneas was apparently the original founder of Rome or something, after the Trojan War.”</p><p>“Fascinating.” The dry sarcasm is lessened by the slight quirk of Penny’s lips, and Julia knocks her shoulder into his arm as she moves past to wait near the gangplank.</p><p>“Shut up, Penny. You don’t have any room to judge, Mr. Obsessive Treasure Hunter.”</p><p>“Touché.” She can hear him following her, and he throws an arm over her shoulder when he catches up. “Let’s go meet your friends then, shall we?”</p><p>Julia tries not to bounce on her heels as they watch the Aeneas approach, but ends up rocking back and forth in anticipation. Penny doesn’t seem to mind, he just pulls her against his chest and moves with her.</p><p>He did shout down the stairs for the others as they had passed by, though, and soon the rest of the crew are gathered on the deck. Kady, Eliot, and Margo lounge on deck chairs as Fen comes over and grabs one of Julia’s hands and swings it back and forth in her own excitement. Julia had talked about her friends to her, but Fen had never been able to meet them before now.</p><p>The ships finally slide next to each other starboard to port, and Fen drops Julia’s hand to help Eliot push the gangplank across the gap as Quentin and Alice anchor the smaller ship. Julia pulls gently out of Penny’s loosened embrace to run across the walkway and hug both of them at once.</p><p>“I missed you!”</p><p>“I’m so glad you could come.”</p><p>“A treasure hunt, Jules? Really?”</p><p>“Who was that you were cuddling with, he’s hot!”</p><p>“Shut up, Alice.”</p><p>“She’s not wrong.”</p><p>“Jesus, Q.”</p><p>They break apart, and Julia smooths her rumpled shirt as she grins at them.</p><p>“So, are you ready for some fucking adventure, bitches?”</p><p>“Oh gods yes.” Alice sighs out dramatically. “Stephanie is trying to learn some kind of fancy lace napkin for her next cocktail party. There are doilies everywhere.”</p><p>Julia pats her arm sympathetically before grabbing their hands and pulling them towards the Muntjac, where the rest of the group has waited to let them have privacy. That’s nice of them.</p><p>They walk across and Julia makes the proper introductions. Penny shakes their hands and Fen goes for a hug, while the others wave from their seats. Josh comes down from docking the ship and meets them briefly before heading back into his kitchen.</p><p>“So, we’re looking for a treasure?” Alice asks after the small-talk has died down.</p><p>“Did you get the files, Q?” He nods, patting the bag hanging off his shoulder, and Julia grins at Penny as he turns to look.</p><p>“Perfect. Let’s go. We’ll tell you the whole story while we figure out where to look next!”</p><p>Julia ushers Quentin towards the stairs, heading for a corner of the PKC that Kady and Penny had taken over with maps and scraps of information they could remember. She assumes everyone else will join them at their leisure, but she sees Kady jump up from her chair and head their way as she starts down the stairs with Q in tow.</p><p>Finally, they can start making some headway on the puzzling clues to find the Fillorian’s lost treasure.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady finally looks up from the chaos of maps, printouts, and pencils to find that several hours had passed. She yawns, and Julia copies her.</p><p>They both break into giggles, which is enough for Penny to pop his head up from the scribbled list he’s writing.</p><p>“Wha’?”</p><p>Kady shakes her head, grinning. “Nothing. Yawns are contagious, that’s all.”</p><p>He blinks. “Oh.” There’s a pause as he looks around, and Kady has to stifle another grin at the oh-so-familiar process as he shakes himself out of a researching fog. “What time is it?”</p><p>She tells them and watches Julia’s eyes go wide.</p><p>“Shit!”</p><p>Kady looks over at her questioningly.</p><p>“I forgot about Q! And Alice! Fuck!”</p><p>Kady shakes her head. “I’m sure Margo and Eliot took care of them. It’s what they do.”</p><p>Penny snorts. “They probably got them drunk.”</p><p>“That is a distinct possibility. They’re not opposed to alcohol, are they?”</p><p>Julia grimaces. “I mean, no, but neither of them are very experienced drinkers.”</p><p>Kady shares a smirk with Penny. “I’m sure it’s fine. Maybe we should go check on them, though. We have the list of potential places, right?”</p><p>Penny nods, scooping up the paper with four or five islands’ coordinates on it. “Yeah, although only one of them has people on it. I’ve heard about the crazy stuff that goes on at Ember Island, I just didn’t realize it was so close to Crazy Bitch Island.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Apparently some reclusive Russian guy bought the island. He lets people stay there once they prove they’re ‘worthy’ or something. I assumed he was just scamming them for money. Or alcohol, apparently he drinks a lot.”</p><p>Kady lifts an eyebrow. “And you heard this from, let me guess, Pete?”</p><p>He grins. “Of course. He was trying to get laid, and some tourist was asking about haunted islands. Pete played up the mysteriousness, made it seem like the old man could control the dead since he supposedly lives near a graveyard. Granted I don’t know how true any of that is, just that apparently people live on Ember but it’s not a huge tourist spot.”</p><p>“But did he get the lay, is the important part.” Kady laughs as Penny rolls his eyes at her.</p><p>“Of course he did, it’s Pete. He had the pretty-boy tourist making heart eyes at him in minutes. Probably broke his heart after a good shag, too.”</p><p>“That sounds about right.” She stands up and Julia follows suit. Kady slides an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go rescue your friends from ours.”</p><p>Penny comes around the table as he puts the list in his bag. “Time to make sure they didn’t get alcohol poisoning.”</p><p>Julia snorts, relaxing under Kady’s arm quicker this time than before. “Yeah, so I can apologize for leaving them alone as soon as they got here.”</p><p>“We’ll blame it all on Penny.” Kady shrugs as Penny sputters in mock outrage at her and Julia snickers. “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ ALICE ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Alice steers the Aeneas into the little dock of Ember Island behind the Muntjac. The last few days had been wild.</p><p>First, she gets a call from Quentin asking if they can borrow the boat for a few days to go meet Jules and find buried treasure. Now, she’ll take any excuse she can find to get out of the house, and looking for buried treasure? Of course she said yes!</p><p>Meeting Julia’s new friends the afternoon before had been ... interesting? Overwhelming? They were a lot.</p><p>Seeing Julia with some guy’s arm around her shoulder was a shock itself since she had sworn off dating while she was working on her thesis. Plus her last relationship had ended poorly, even though she still says James was a sweet guy. But this guy was hot, so at least Jules still has good taste.</p><p>Meeting Penny and the rest was a whirlwind of names and more hugs than Alice had gotten in a long time. Her parents weren’t really the hugging type. But these people gave hugs like they didn’t even think twice about it, Fen and Josh just barreling into her space to wrap warm arms around her before heading back to whatever they were doing.</p><p>After Julia dragged Q away, Alice had stood awkwardly near the chairs where the others were lounging until the tall lanky guy motioned to a recently-vacated couch.</p><p>“Sit down, sit down, I’ll get you a drink.” He had gotten up and headed to a bar nearby over her protests that she didn’t need anything, and Alice finally settled down on the edge of the couch that the girl with curly hair — Katie or something — had left free when she followed Julia and Q and Penny.</p><p>“Um, thank you.” Alice took the drink that was pushed into her hand on reflex and watched as the drink-maker fell back onto the couch with Fen and another darker-skinned woman.</p><p>She had taken a sip of the drink and tried not to stare at the confusing tangle of arms and legs as the three people in front of her arranged themselves into something she assumed was comfortable for them. Fen had leaned across his chest as he played with her hair, and the other woman had their legs entangled and was holding the new drinks he had brought them while they all settled before handing them back to their respective owners without spilling a drop.</p><p>“So, Alice, right?” He drawled as she had tried not to make a face at the taste of alcohol in the drink.</p><p>“Um, yeah, that’s uh, that’s me. And, um, you are ...” She had trailed off, hoping he would answer without having to admit that she didn’t remember their names. She was horrible at names. This was why her parents never let her go around their parties, she never knew who she was talking to.</p><p>The other woman had stepped in to save her the embarrassment. “I’m Margo. That’s Eliot. This is Fen.” She had waved at each of them with her free hand before resting it on Fen’s knee. Alice had taken a second to try and commit the names to memory as she took another small sip of the drink. “The others that ran off with your Julia were Penny and Kady. And your friend, of course.”</p><p>Alice had filled in the question asked with a single raised eyebrow. “Quentin. Or Q.”</p><p>“He’s cute, is he seeing anyone?” She had almost spit out the next sip of her drink but inhaled instead as she had tried to cough out the alcohol that had made its way down her windpipe and up her nose at the same time.</p><p>“Oh god, that burns.” She had coughed a few more times as Fen had watched her with open concern before she managed to clear her throat. “Um, no? I mean, not that I know of?”</p><p>“Why would you not know, aren’t you his friend?” Margo had looked her up and down with a smirk. “Or were you something more, perhaps? Are those conversations too awkward?”</p><p>Alice had blushed. “We, um, we were, uh, for a little while we, um, dated. But, um, that was a long time ago. I, uh, I have a girlfriend.”</p><p>“Oh? Do tell, what’s her name?” Eliot had sat up a little straighter, arms still loosely wrapped around Fen’s waist.</p><p>“Uh, her name is Poppy.” Alice had shifted uncomfortably from all the questions but was saved by Q himself coming back up the stairs.</p><p>She shifted over to make room for him on the couch, and they had made small talk and sipped their drinks while they waited for the others to finish whatever research they were looking at.</p><p>Fen did fill them in on the story of the Fillorian and the lost treasure while they waited, and both Alice and Q agreed that they needed to get the artifacts back to the native Fillorians. Although apparently there was a ‘Crazy Bitch Lady’ (Margo’s words) who was also trying to find the treasure now that she had seen proof that it was real. So that’s always fun, turning it into a competition.</p><p>Soon enough, though, Julia had come back with the others and given Eliot a first possible location.</p><p>Ember Island.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>The first order of business after getting back onto dry land?</p><p>Get a drink, of course.</p><p>Kady rolls her eyes as Eliot drags Margo and Penny off with him, and continues helping Fen shore the Muntjac. She’ll meet up with them later.</p><p>Besides, someone has to take the initiative and start looking around for clues.</p><p>Alice, Julia, and Quentin come over from docking their ship, and Kady hops down off the deck to meet them. She slings an arm each around Quentin and Alice and pretends not to notice them both stiffen up slightly, although neither of them tries to shrug out of her lax hold.</p><p>All of these ivy league nerds are too damn tense, they need to loosen up a little. Margo had noticed that too, and the Muntjac crew had resolved to get them to relax more. Julia had responded a lot more to their hugs and affectionate clinging after only a few days, so hopefully they can do the same for Alice and Quentin. If they want it, of course, but none of them seem opposed to the contact. Just unused to it.</p><p>During the lunch break earlier that day, Jules had cuddled into Penny first without being reeled in as both crews had sat on the couches relaxing. Eliot, Margo, and Kady had shared a look of amusement and tried not to say anything to point it out, in case it startled Julia, but Kady could see Penny’s smile even as he ducked his head to try and hide it.</p><p>Kady smirks at Julia when she asks where the others went off to.</p><p>“They went to find a bar. Well, Josh went to check out what perishable foods he can buy, and the others went to find a bar.”</p><p>Julia rolls her eyes but obviously isn’t really that surprised.</p><p>“So, um, what now?” Quentin looks up quickly and then looks away again when Kady turns her head to meet his gaze.</p><p>“Well, we have a few options. We can either try and find any of the marked stones that Chatwin supposedly left as clues, or we can just take Alice’s makeshift dive boat out to see if we can find any more hints of the treasure. Or we can go talk to some of the locals, since this particular island actually has some people on it for once.”</p><p>Alice spoke up. “Talking to locals might help if they’ve run across any of the marker-stones. Also, excuse me, ‘makeshift’ dive boat? There’s a lot of very expensive equipment on there!”</p><p>Kady squeezes the arm around Alice gently. She and Penny had gone over earlier to check out the condition of the scavenging equipment, and while all of it was expensive and in almost-mint condition, plenty of it was unnecessary trinkets and several important key instruments were nowhere to be found.</p><p>“Alice, your parents probably just bought the equivalent of ‘Diving Shit 101’ without knowing anything about they were buying or how to use it. The Aeneas doesn’t even have a bathymetric MBES.”</p><p>Kady snorts at the blank look from Alice and a raised eyebrow from Julia. “Multi-beam echosounder, it measures the contours of the ocean floor, also known as bathymetry.”</p><p>Alice shakes her head a little, sighing. “I’m not even surprised, they rarely went out with the equipment they had, no wonder it wasn’t one of their longer-term hobbies. Only lasted a month or so, even if they kept all the stuff.”</p><p>“So, are we going to talk to some locals, then?”</p><p>“Yup! Let’s go find the rest of the crazy kids.” Kady can’t resist ruffling Q’s hair as she lets him and Alice go in response to his question. He scowls at her and runs his hands through his hair to try and fix it.</p><p>They walk through small rows of houses towards what is hopefully the town center. Kady spots Penny leaning out the door of a building as they get closer.</p><p>He doesn’t say anything until they approach, but his words once they’re within earshot cause Kady to stop walking and look at him with furrowed eyebrows.</p><p>“Hey, Kady! Your thief friend is here!”</p><p>Wait, what?</p><p>She heads inside, the others following after a brief pause. The main room is mostly empty, a few locals sitting at a back table with a dice game and her friends standing near the bar.</p><p>Penny, Eliot, Margo, and ... Marina?</p><p>What. The fuck.</p><p>“Kadycat!” Marina releases her half-hold on Margo and walks over to embrace her, and Kady stares at her for a few seconds before hugging her back.</p><p>“‘Rina? How — What the fuck are you doing here?”</p><p>Marina lets go of her and smirks, shrugging one shoulder. “Oh, ya know, finished up some business on the mainland, needed a place to lie low for a bit, came back to Brakebills, met some people, ended up out here. The usual pattern of life.”</p><p>Kady snorts. “Did you piss off that asshole Rowe again? You gave him the Emerson’s Alloy, right?”</p><p>Marina nods. “I did, I did do that. Gave it to the old bastard, that is. But apparently it still wasn’t enough, and he reneged on our deal. So I blew outta town, headed back this way a few months ago.”</p><p>“You didn’t tell Hannah or mom that you were heading out.” Margo cuts in with a raised eyebrow. “I talked to them the last time we landed at the mainland and they hadn’t heard from you since before the heist.”</p><p>Marina shrugs sheepishly. “I didn’t want to worry them.”</p><p>Kady smacks the back of her head lightly, and Marina scowls at her. “The fuck, Kady?!”</p><p>“Of course they were worried, ‘Rina! They always worry, about all of us. Not checking in is just going to make them think you’re dead in a ditch somewhere.”</p><p>Marina raises her hands. “Fine, fine! I’ll give them a call the next time I’m on Brakebills, okay? Happy now?”</p><p>“Ecstatic.” Kady and Margo reply in unison, and they all grin.</p><p>Footsteps coming from the back towards the door behind the bar herald a visitor, but they hear him before they see him.</p><p>“Marina? What’s going on?”</p><p>A familiar voice, yet another one that Kady had not expected to hear all the way out here. She watches as a shirtless Pete slides out the door, stopping to take in the crowd of people standing at the bar.</p><p>“Just catching up with —“ Whatever Marina had been about to say is cut off when Pete catches sight of Penny. With a yell of delight, he jumps smoothly over the bar and hugs his best friend, both of them talking over each other and not listening to a word the other is saying.</p><p>“Where’s my hug, Pete? And how the fuck did you get here?” Kady smirks as Pete whips around so fast he almost falls, grabbing onto Penny’s arm for balance.</p><p>“Kady!” He sweeps her up in a giant hug and swings her around as she laughs.</p><p>“You didn’t answer my question, Pete.” She says as he finally puts her down. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>He shrugs. “Ran into Marina here on Welters Island after Pen and I got a ride over from that McAllistair lady. Followed her here, since Penny ran off the next morning without saying goodbye.” The glare he shoots Penny is enough for the other man to grimace and shrug helplessly.</p><p>“Sorry, bro. But I left you a message! I told you I was going to find Kady and get her help!”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. Not like you told me where or anything useful like that.”</p><p>Kady snorts. “Right, like that’s ever stopped you from showing up before.”</p><p>Pete spares her a smirk. “I have my ways, what can I say? Anyway, I figured I’d need another way off Welters, so I just wandered around until I found this lovely lady with a boat who let me hitch a ride with her. To fucking Ember Island!”</p><p>Kady and Penny both roll their eyes at his grin.</p><p>“Speaking of Ember Island, what the fuck are you all doing here?” Marina cast her eyes around the group before landing back on Kady.</p><p>“Oh, that’s a tale that requires a drink. Maybe two.”</p><p>Marina grins. “Of course. Pick your poison, everyone.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady takes the lead once more, telling the tale of Chatwin and the Fillorian much better than he can. Penny just sits back and enjoys listening, sipping on the drink that Eliot hands him from where he had hopped over the bar to make drinks with Pete as Marina listens to the story.</p><p>He only interjects once, to insist again that they are not searching for the treasure to keep it, but rather return it to the people it once belonged to. Marina had raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Margo and Pete, who had both nodded in confirmation. Marina had shrugged in acceptance and motioned for Kady to keep talking.</p><p>They finish explaining about the clues that Martin left, the island’s location and several stones or something he had supposedly marked with the Fillorian seal to indicate where he had buried the treasure. Penny pulls out the plate to show Marina the seal on the back and asks if it seems familiar.</p><p>“I’ve been here half a year and never seen a stone with that on it. Not that I’ve been staring at rocks in my free time.”</p><p>Julia giggled at that, and Penny rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Well, is there anyone here who might have seen anything like that?”</p><p>“I have.” Suddenly a voice speaks from beyond their group, and Penny whips around to see who it is. Sitting at a table facing away from them but twisted in her chair so that she can talk to them now, is Skye.</p><p>Penny freezes as he recognizes her.</p><p>“Oh fuck.” Pete whispers from behind the bar, and Penny can’t help but agree. If Skye is here, that means that Irene has sent her to find the treasure.</p><p>And if she’s already seen a marker, did that mean she had found the treasure?</p><p>“You have?” Quentin asks her, and Penny remembers that only he and Pete know who she is. “Where?”</p><p>“Don’t listen to her, she’s trying to throw us off the track!” Penny glares at her as the others turn to look at him, but she just looks back at him unconcerned.</p><p>“Why? Do you know her?” Julia asks from her seat next to Kady and Alice.</p><p>Pete answers for him. “She works for that McAllistair bitch.”</p><p>Skye shrugs. “Only sometimes. She thinks she can buy my loyalty, but I’m not loyal to her.”</p><p>Penny raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? So why did you follow us here? Trying to take the treasure for yourself?”</p><p>She shakes her head. “No, I’m here to see if you are worthy.”</p><p>“Worthy of what? Staying on Ember Island? I’ve heard the rumors, but I thought that was some old man.” Pete has come out from behind the bar to stand at Penny’s side, arms crossed.</p><p>“Mischa doesn’t like strangers, but he hardly cares who comes to the island as long as they don’t disturb him. No, I’m here to see if you are worthy of the treasure.”</p><p>Penny and Kady share an incredulous look. Who did this chick think she was?!</p><p>“What makes you think we have anything to prove to you? You don’t even know us.” Eliot drawls from behind the bar, crossed arms resting on the counter.</p><p>“You’re right.” She shrugs again. “I don’t know you. But I do know where the next clue for the treasure is located. I’ll tell you.”</p><p>“But only if we prove we’re worthy, right?” Penny scoffs. “And then we have to trust that you’re not leading us into a fucking trap for that Irene bitch.”</p><p>Skye shakes her head. “No. You already proved that you are worthy.”</p><p>Um, come again?</p><p>“The fuck does that mean?” Margo’s voice cuts like ice through the stunned silence.</p><p>“You wish to return the treasure to the native Fillorians. You don’t want to find it for greed’s sake. You are worthy.”</p><p>Kady leans forward. “I think you’d better start from the beginning.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ ELIOT ~~~</p><p> </p><p>They move into the deserted back room to listen to the woman’s story. Eliot slides into the seat next to Quentin, a familiar action already considering they’d only met, like, yesterday.</p><p>What can he say, he bonds fast. Especially to cute shy boys.</p><p>Q looks up but doesn’t move away when El slings an arm around his shoulder.</p><p>“So, start from the beginning.” Margo commands the stranger-slash-possibly-enemy-slash-possibly-ally, El hasn’t figured that part out yet.</p><p>He listens as the woman, who introduces herself as Skye, tells her tale.</p><p>She has worked for the McAllistairs her whole life. Her entire family has, which is a little old-fashioned but Eliot could think of worse ways to live. At least she’s getting paid, as Kady and Julia almost talk over each other to make sure it’s not a gross bondage-slavery deal.</p><p>Ten years earlier, Irene McAllistair got obsessed with finding the treasure. She was already filthy rich, but she wanted more. She wanted to be revered by everyone, and the way she thought she could do this was by finding a glorious cache of valuables. She even bought the Brakebills Museum on a whim, because they had a small display on Chatwin and she thought there might be more clues hidden there.</p><p>“She still owns the museum?” Kady asks with a look to both Penny and Marina.</p><p>“Yes, she decided it was a good revenue source. But really I think she likes having the excuse to go to Brakebills Island and flaunt her wealth.” Skye says with a flat voice, clearly unimpressed with her boss.</p><p>With good reason, as she continues and tells them that instead of searching the islands herself, Irene delegated that job on to Skye. She was given a list of places to check and sent on her way with her skiff. She was not to come back until she had checked every last one for any hint of treasure.</p><p>So she started searching. Eliot loses the thread of the story for a bit as he plays mindlessly with Q’s hair and the other boy slowly leans back against him. Oh, he likes this one a lot.</p><p>He looks up and catches his Bambi’s eye as she watches him with a pointed look. She reads his face in an instant. Her eyebrow raises to ask him what’s so special about this one. He shrugs one shoulder slightly, because he doesn’t know. It’s just different, that’s all. Margo glances over at Quentin, and Eliot watches her eyes soften a little. He smirks when she looks back over at him, and she rolls her eyes. But she also nods her approval.</p><p>And draws his attention back to Skye’s story, and he tunes back in.</p><p>She had found ... something, El had missed that part, here on Ember Island. A clue, presumably, the next step in the hunt.</p><p>Ember Island was one of many abandoned islands, with the ruins of old settlements that still show people had lived there at one time. This island had only one occupant, the aforementioned old man who had bought the island and used it as his personal hermit hideaway.</p><p>“I took the wellstone to Mischa,” that must have been the clue, although why a stone is so important Eliot has no idea, “He was kind enough to keep it secret, keep it safe. Two weeks later I went back to Irene and told her I could not find any sign of the treasure.”</p><p>“If no one else was here, how come there are people now?” Fen asks from her seat next to Margo.</p><p>“Mischa had said I could visit any time I wanted, that he had realized how much he had missed talking to another person. He didn’t want random tourists or anything showing up, but we made a deal. Any time I would find someone who needed a place to lay low for a while, like your friend there, I would bring them to Ember. Word spread among the people who needed it and the island became a transient refuge of sorts. People stayed for as short or as long as they needed, and spread the rumors of a crazy old man to keep the tourists from getting too nosy. It was a good system, and built up over the years into a nice community.”</p><p>“A community on the run from the law?” Alice quietly questions, and predictably Kady, Margo, and Penny, all chime in with variations of “I’m in!” or “Sounds great!” while Marina and Pete just laugh.</p><p>“Why tell us all of this?” Julia asks, which is a fair point. “Why not just go get the treasure yourself?”</p><p>Skye shrugs. “What would I do with it? I don’t have the resources to get the treasure off the island, especially not without Irene finding out. Besides, one person can’t go find it alone, that would be a death sentence. Irene found a hint that Chatwin put traps in place to keep anyone from finding the treasure before he could get it out of the Keys.”</p><p>“So you just moved the clue.” Julia presses with a cocked eyebrow, and Eliot can see where her confusion is coming from. He doesn’t think he could know about a hidden treasure and then just ... go back to his regular life.</p><p>Obviously, or none of them would be here.</p><p>“My only goal was to keep Irene McAllistair from getting her hands on it,” Skye says calmly as if she wasn’t talking about hiding something from her employer that said employer had explicitly asked her to do.</p><p>“So, no loyalty to her, then?”</p><p>This gets a raised eyebrow as she spits out viscerally, “Fuck the McAllistairs, and fuck Irene.”</p><p>There’s a moment of stunned silence, and then Margo leans forward and offers her drink to Skye. “Attagirl, you stick it to that bitch and her crazy family.”</p><p>Skye takes the proffered drink with a small smirk and takes a long swallow before handing it back.</p><p>“What will you do now? You’re not going to go back to her, are you?” Fen asks, always concerned with the wellbeing of others.</p><p>Skye shakes her head. “No, I’m only going back to quit, and to see if my family will do the same. Some of them might choose to stay, but I have to try. Then I might come back here, since I know many of the people. I’ll take over the bar if Marina will be returning with you all after you recover the treasure.”</p><p>Marina nods. “Good. Mayakovsky will like that, since he owns the damn place.”</p><p>“Speaking of the crazy old man,” Pete interjects, “We should probably go see him, get the clue  that he has hidden away.”</p><p>Everyone nods, and they all say thank you to Skye for her part in helping them. She promises to do her best to keep Irene off their tail. Fen hugs her tightly, which seems to amuse and confuse Skye as she lightly pats her back.</p><p>They head back out into the open air, with Pete and Marina leading the way through the village toward the ‘crazy old man’ that has the next key to their adventure.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Penny was not expecting the Russian accent.</p><p>“What do you want.” The first words out of the old man’s mouth when he opens the door are gruff and brisk as he glares out at the assembled group.</p><p>“Hey old man, Skye sent us.” Marina says with a grin, cutting straight to the point.</p><p>“We brought booze.” Pete chimes in, holding up a bottle of some kind.</p><p>The old man’s expression softens just a hair at the mention of Skye, and he pulls back from the door after grabbing the bottle that Pete holds out. “How is Skye. She not come with you?”</p><p>“She’s watching the bar. She’ll be heading back soon, but she might come to stay permanently in a bit.”</p><p>He nods and walks further into the room, waving a hand for them to follow. “Come in, come in. Who are you?”</p><p>He waves a hand vaguely at the group that slowly follows Marina and Pete into the main room. It was larger than Penny had expected, given the ‘hermit in the woods’ vibes he had gotten every time someone had mentioned the old man.</p><p>Although he did buy the island, so obviously he must be rich enough to buy a big house, even if it is sparsely decorated. Everything is in shades of whites and greys and blues, reminding Penny of snow and colder climates. He wondered why the Russian had moved to a tropical island if he was just going to decorate his house like an ice palace.</p><p>Marina makes quick introductions of the newcomers and then waves her hand toward the old man. “Guys, this is Mischa Mayakovsky, resident drunk and cranky old man, and owner of Ember Island as well as the town bar.”</p><p>“Welcome to abode, friends of Marina. Skye sent you. Why?” He sent the bottle down on a rather ornate bar top that is covered in other bottles and turns to face them.</p><p>“Skye said you have the next clue for the lost Fillorian treasure.” Penny says bluntly, matching the old man’s no-nonsense posture as he steps forward.</p><p>That gets an immediate reaction from Mayakovsky. He straightens up and stares directly at Penny for a long minute, and Penny tries not to squirm under the calculating gaze.</p><p>“Skye sent you? How I know you not lying?” He scans the rest of the group slowly as Penny tries to think of something to say that would convince him, but Julia steps up to save him.</p><p>“She said we were worthy of the treasure.” Julia stares down Mayakovsky without so much as a twitch, and Penny is impressed once again by this small nerdy girl he had met such a short time ago. “We want to find the treasure and return it to the native Fillorian people where it belongs.”</p><p>Kady steps up next to Julia to add her two cents in. “We don’t want it for ourselves, like the McAllistairs. We just want to recover a culture’s artifacts that have been lost for too long.”</p><p>The old man studies the three of them as they stand at the forefront, with the others spread out behind them. It seems like hours but was probably only a minute or so before he drops his probing gaze.</p><p>“Fine. You may stay. Tell how learned of treasure, and how met Skye.”</p><p>“It’s kinda a long story...” Kady began after a pause, and Mayakovsky raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“You got better thing to do? More important than get information? Sit. Drink. Tell tale.” He motions to a long table that looks like it might have been new half a century ago but fills up the large space nicely, with a mismatched collection of white and off-white chairs around it.</p><p>They all do as they’re told and sit. Except for Eliot, who heads over to the bar and starts mixing drinks. Because of course he does.</p><p>Mischa scowls at him at first, presumably for daring to touch his precious collection of liquor, but sees that Eliot knows what he’s doing and lets him continue after grabbing a bottle and a glass and bringing them to the table with him. Penny half-expects him to forgo the glass entirely and take a swig from the bottle, but the old man pours a double and downs it before pouring a second one and looking expectantly at the travelers.</p><p>“Well? Start talking.”</p><p>And so they tell the entire tale once more.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ JULIA ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Julia watches from her seat in between Penny and Kady as the Russian man takes another long drink, straight from the bottle this time, before he gets up from the table. He hasn’t said anything in a few minutes, listening to their tale as they take turns explaining. Kady and Penny have both grabbed onto one of her hands while the other was talking, and she’s been giving them hopefully-reassuring squeezes every time they get tense from the pressure of getting this right. Being so close to the end of years of searching? She can’t even imagine how they’re feeling right now, aside from unbelievably stressed.</p><p>Mayakovsky takes the bottle back to the bar and sets it down before vanishing down a hallway and through one of several closed doors. No one says anything to break the silence as they all watch where he went with bated breath for a long minute.</p><p>Eventually, Margo is the one to speak first. Turning to Kady, she goes, “Well Kadycat, I think that went well.”</p><p>Kady lets out a sigh, and Julia squeezes her hand once more. “I sure hope so. We’re so close, I don’t think I could take it if he turned us away now.”</p><p>Julia shakes her head and speaks up with her own observations. “I don’t think he will, though. He seems to trust Skye and her word.”</p><p>“She vouched for us, sure, but is that enough?” Penny pulls his hand free from Julia’s to run both hands through his hair and shakes his head slowly. “It has to be.”</p><p>“It will be, bro.” Pete chimes in from his seat near Marina. “Mayakovsky’s bark is worse than his bite, I promise. I mean, he hasn’t kicked me out, and you know how annoying I can be when I try.” He jokes, which gets a small smirk out of Penny and a snort from Kady.</p><p>“That’s true, at least.” Marina reclines in her chair with ease, not concerned at all as far as Julia can tell. “Relax, it’ll be fine. He’s probably just trying to find a ten-year-old hiding spot, the man can hoard like a dragon.”</p><p>“I am not dragon.” Half the table jumps as Mayakovsky reappears in the doorway with a large box in his arms. “It is common sense to keep thing that may be useful. You young people always ask for new things because throw out old one that work perfectly good.”</p><p>“And yet, you have a cabinet of fine wine that you literally never drink.” Pete points out with a grin.</p><p>Mayakovsky scowls at him. “Quiet, fuckboy.”</p><p>Penny bursts out laughing, and Pete turns to Marina with a dramatic hand thrown over his heart. “Marina! How could you teach him such language!”</p><p>Marina sips her drink with one raised eyebrow before she replies. “He definitely already knew all of those words. I just taught him a new phrase and how to use it effectively.”</p><p>Mayakovsky nods decisively as he sets the ornate box on the table. “Is good phrase. Good advice, too, for some of you idiots. Fuck the boys. Or girls.” He nods at Margo, who nods back with a grin and hugs her arm around Fen.</p><p>Pete grins. “Trust me, I definitely do. Ask Penny here.”</p><p>Penny sputters and leans over to smack Pete on the arm, but he ducks away with a grin.</p><p>Mischa shakes his head. “Not you, fuckboy. That one and shy one.” He points to Eliot and Q sitting next to him, who instantly goes red and duck his head.</p><p>Julia shares a smirk with Kady. She had seen how Eliot was with Quentin, and she knew Q liked him back. She had even tried to convince him to go for it as they walked over here from the bar after seeing them while Skye was telling her story.</p><p>Eliot takes it in stride, of course, and just curls an arm around Q and hugs him in a mirror of Margo’s movement earlier. Q hides his face against Eliot’s shoulder with a groan, and El grins as he waves his free hand in a ‘go on’ motion. “Who else needs to fuck?”</p><p>Mayakovsky takes the joking question seriously and suddenly sweeps an arm toward Julia’s side of the table. Confused, she looks between Penny and Kady twice and then back at the Russian. “They’re already dating. I think?” She remembers that they were broken up at the beginning of this adventure, and glances over at Kady again with a questioning look.</p><p>“Not them. You. All you. Fuck boy and fuck girl. Or girls.” He waves his hands between all of them in turn, ending last on Penny. “You like each other, no? So just fuck already!”</p><p>Um. What? Did a crazy old man just tell them to have a threesome? While they’re on an island looking for a buried treasure?</p><p>What the fuck?</p><p>She realizes she’s still holding Kady’s hand and tries to pull away gently, but Kady doesn’t let her go as she looks over with a smile. Julia panics for a second until Penny carefully takes her other hand again and squeezes it gently. She looks over at him and he smirks at her softly, a familiar expression she had seen him give to Kady several times on the journey over.</p><p>Um. What. The. Fuck?</p><p>Fen clears her throat and asks pointedly, “What’s in the box?”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ QUENTIN ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Quentin listens as Mayakovsky tells them about a well at the center of the town.</p><p>Martin Chatwin had done his plundering and pillaging over the span of many, many months, and Q remembered Kady saying that he had kept going back to his hidden hoard.</p><p>They had theorized that he had left clues pointing toward the treasure in case something happened to him and he needed to send someone else in his place to collect the treasure. One of his crewmen from The Beast, perhaps, as his ship had been called before he changed the name to The Fillorian.</p><p>They hadn’t known what the clues had looked like, so they had planned to just be on the lookout for something that stood out of the ordinary as they searched the potential islands.</p><p>The wellstone is definitely not ordinary.</p><p>It isn’t actually a stone, either. It’s a large, thick circular piece of wood with an ornate clock carved into it. The clock has roman numerals around the edge with intricate swirling patterns curving through the middle space where the hands would have gone round and round, if they weren’t missing. At the center is the double-ram-heads iconography that Quentin had gotten familiar with as he delved through files to print out the research that Julia had asked him to recover.</p><p>Martin had used this clock as the cover-stone to the well in the ruins of the old town. Apparently Skye had gone to this particular well to get a drink of water, and when she realized it had run dry she had stared up as if to ask the heavens why. Staring back down at her from what had once been an open hole in the stonework -- for the rain to fall through into the well, according to Jules -- had been the face-down clock piece, jammed there by the pirate decades earlier.</p><p>Mayakovsky had helped Skye wrestle it from its ill-fitting resting place, and they brought it to his house to keep it safe. They had fashioned a new cover for the well to keep it dry, since there were several other wells among the village that were supplying water for him and eventually the fledgling community that they would build up over the coming years.</p><p>Skye had thought there were probably booby traps under the well. She had apparently climbed down far enough once, just for curiosity’s sake, to see a tunnel that leads off into the darkness further than her little flashlight could shed light. Not wanting to chance it on her own, she had returned to the surface and taken on the role of protector instead.</p><p>“See! I knew she had wanted to look for the treasure!” Julia exclaims at that, breaking into the story to earn herself a scowl from Mayakovsky.</p><p>“Of course, but she not idiot. What would happen if injured down there all alone? Smarter to wait until stupid people come along to go down stupid trap tunnel.”</p><p>Quentin watches as Julia opens her mouth to defend against his calling them stupid, but Kady pulls her back from her up-right position until she’s leaning partly against the other girl and whispers something in her ear. Julia rolls her eyes but stays quiet, and Q silently applauds Kady when he catches her eye. It’s not easy to calm a defensive Julia, he knows this from years of experience.</p><p>She winks at him and makes suggestive wiggles with her eyebrows as she glances between him and Eliot, who still has his arm around Quentin even though he had pulled slightly away to look at the wellstone.</p><p>He blushes and looks away, but doesn’t move from the comfort of El’s arm.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ JULIA ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Julia is glad when they finally leave Mayakovsky’s house and head down to the well he told them about. She trails behind the group with Alice, still reeling from the bluntness of the old man’s words.</p><p>Of course she has crushes on both Penny and Kady. They were genuine, and brilliant, and passionate. She felt comfortable with them after just a few days, and she had let them get closer in that span of time than she had ever let anyone get that quickly.</p><p>Even her friendships with Q and Alice had taken time to grow and flourish into the tight bonds that they had today.</p><p>She seemed to have skipped past all of that with Kady and Penny. Julia thinks through all their interactions and wonders how she had missed that.</p><p>Sure, they were always hugging her or putting an arm around her. But they were like that with all of their friends, too, weren’t they? She saw them be just as affectionate with Margo, Eliot, Fen, even Pete and Marina. She had assumed that that was just the way they were, especially after seeing them all pick up the behavior with Quentin and Alice.</p><p>But it felt different, when Fen, Margo, or Eliot would do the same actions that Kady and Penny did. She felt companionship from them, but there was something more when it was Penny or Kady.</p><p>They were safety, security, comfort. Both of them.</p><p>Alice nudges her shoulder gently to pull her out of her thoughts, and Julia looks over at the quiet blonde.</p><p>“I think you should go for it, for what it’s worth. You can’t regret trying, even if it doesn’t end up working out. I don’t, with Quentin. Or with you.”</p><p>Julia smiles softly. “I don’t regret you, either.”</p><p>She remembers the few nights they had shared before they had decided they were better off as friends. They had been born out of drunken experimentation and loneliness, but she doesn’t regret them. She had learned something important about herself, and so had Alice.</p><p>They arrive at the well before she can speak up again, but she pulls the other girl into a quick side-hug that she may have picked up from Eliot, squeezing gently before letting go.</p><p>“Thanks, Ali.”</p><p>The blonde smiles at her. “Any time, Jules. Now, let’s go find a buried treasure!”</p><p>They all circle the well. It’s almost three feet in diameter, and Julia looks up and sees the wood circle that presumably Mischa and Skye put in between the stones attached to the columns that keep the outer sections of the well dry.</p><p>Kady picks up a pebble and drops it down the shaft at a nod from Penny, who had held his hands up when she picked the pebble off the ground. Julia watches as Penny counts the seconds, moving one hand in a circle each ‘second’ so that he can track the time between. His other hand marks the actual seconds, and he gets to two before they hear the thunk of the pebble hitting the dry bottom. His circling hand pauses at the bottom of its rotation, so it was two and a half minutes, give or take.</p><p>Penny pulls out a notebook as Julia starts thinking. The depth of an object in free-fall is the initial velocity (zero) plus 1/2 times gravity times seconds squared. Gravity is 9.8, and 2.5 seconds squared is approximately half-way between the squares of two and three, which are 4 and 9, the midway of that being 6.5. So 6.5 times approximately ten is 65, although probably closer to 63, and half of that is 31 meters. Meters to feet is just over 3.25 times, so 90 and another 10 is “One hundred feet, give or take.”</p><p>Julia speaks up as Penny circles something on the notebook he was scribbling calculations in, and she grins as he blinks up at her.</p><p>“Uh, yeah! Exactly! With room for error, of course, without an exact millisecond calculation.”</p><p>Kady whistles after she looks over the calculations that Penny had done on his paper. “Damn, girl, you did that in your head? You have a great mind for numbers and calculations.”</p><p>Julia shrugs a little self-consciously. “I’m not bad with them. Math makes sense, once you know the tips and tricks, and physics is just formulas of math.”</p><p>Quentin snorts. “She’s just being modest. Jules is very good with numbers, and the only reason I passed any of my high school math classes.”</p><p>“Anyway.” Julia shoots Eliot a grateful look and he winks at her. “How are we supposed to get down there?”</p><p>“Rope.” Penny and Kady say in unison, and Margo snorts.</p><p>“Of course, idiots, but I for one am not shimmying down a hundred-foot rope with just my hands. I did not pack the right shoes for spelunking.” Julia looks down at the strappy sandals Margo is wearing and is inclined to agree. They did look very nice with her outfit, though.</p><p>“We can make a rope ladder,” Pete says, and Penny is nodding with him. “There are a bunch of wooden planks in a storage shed in town. I think they’re there for storm prevention, securing windows and such. We can use those and some ropes to make a step ladder.”</p><p>“Really? How did you know that was there?” Marina asks, and Pete shrugs.</p><p>“I got bored, started exploring the island while you were at the bar.”</p><p>“But will that work? It’s not just a movie-magic prop?”</p><p>Penny shakes his head. “Nah, we can do it. We’ve done it before. It’s a good way to get in or out of a third-story window without anyone finding out as long as you don’t leave the ladder out all night and forget about it in the morning.”</p><p>Julia stares between them. “That sounds like specific advice born of experience.”</p><p>Pete grimaces and nods. “Yup.”</p><p>She decides she’s not going to ask.</p><p>“So, we have access to wooden planks, and we need rope and presumably some flashlights, what else?”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady watches Penny and Pete make some complicated-looking twisting loops with two ropes and slide the planks of wood that El and Q retrieved from the shed into them before pulling the loops tight, keeping the wood in place before repeating the whole process again a foot lower.</p><p>She’s waiting for Julia to get back from the boats with Fen and Alice. They had gone to get flashlights, backpacks, and anything else they thought could be useful for the tunnel adventure.</p><p>They need to talk. All three of them.</p><p>Mayakovsky had made that clear. Kady and Penny had planned to talk to her anyway after they all found the treasure, but after Julia’s reaction at the old man’s house, Kady wants to make sure she’s okay. They need to spell things out and make sure everyone is comfortable.</p><p>She’s pretty sure she’s read Julia correctly, and the other girl had let her pull her back from yelling at Mayakovsky, although she had been tenser than the previous days.</p><p>Kady hears the three girls coming, their voices carrying as Fen says something to make the others laugh. She nudges Penny with the toe of her boot, and he looks up at her. ‘Julia’ her hands spell out as she lifts her chin to point in the direction the girls are coming from. He nods, and Margo steps up to take over sliding planks into the rope loops that Pete creates.</p><p>“Go talk to your girl.” She says, and Kady gives her a sloppy salute with a grin.</p><p>The three girls are walking up to the well that the others had made their impromptu workstation, arms full of flashlights and cloth and extra rope. Julia sets her bundle down and shrugs off the backpack she’s wearing, and Kady sidles up to her.</p><p>“Hey, can we ... talk?” She gets her attention with a light touch, and motions over to where Penny is standing a little ways off. Julia looks up at her, and then over at Penny and back again, and visibly swallows. Kady smiles at her. “Hey now, nothing bad, we just wanna get on the same page, hmm?”</p><p>Julia nods. “Okay.”</p><p>She follows Kady over towards Penny, and they walk a little way down the path so they’re out of earshot of their friends.</p><p>“Are you okay?” The first words out of Penny’s mouth make Julia’s eyebrows dip.</p><p>“Yes? Why would I -- What do you mean?” She changes direction halfway through, looking between them.</p><p>“You seemed a little spooked back there, that’s all. We just want to check in, see how you’re doing.”</p><p>“I’m fine.” Julia crosses her arms. “I just, I don’t, um, I can’t —“</p><p>She stutters to a stop, gasping slightly as Penny steps up in front of her. He’s had more experience with this kind of thing than Kady has.</p><p>“Can I hug you right now?” His soft voice carries easily and Julia nods, running her hands back and forth over her arms. He folds his arms around her gently, crossed arms and all. “Hey, it’s okay, just breath, okay? In, and out. Follow my breaths, that’s it.”</p><p>Julia calms as she listens to his voice and Kady watches quietly as she tries to mimic the exaggerated breaths Penny makes for her. It’s much easier to cut anxiety off at the start, Kady has learned, than to let it grow into a full anxiety or panic attack.</p><p>They stand there for a minute, Penny rubbing Julia’s back in slow circles and breathing calmly. She pulls away eventually and he lets her go.</p><p>"I’m sorry.” She says softly, and Kady steps in.</p><p>“None of that, no apologizing for feelings. Especially the shitty ones like anxiety.” Julia meets her eyes with a small smile. “Feeling better?”</p><p>She nods, and Kady continues. “Do you think you’re okay to talk now, or do you want to table this conversation for now? We don’t want you to be uncomfortable, or confused, or stressed. Whatever you want is what we’ll do.”</p><p>Julia blinks several times, and then without a word walks into Kady’s quickly-opened arms. She’s still shaking a little, and Kady hugs her tight for a long minute.</p><p>“Whatever I want?” She whispers so quietly that Kady has to strain to hear it. “No one’s ever asked me that before. My parents don’t care about anything but their image and reputation, and I usually just go along with everyone else’s decisions and expectations.”</p><p>Penny wraps his arms around them both, a strong shield at Julia’s back. “You can always have a choice when you want one. We just want you to be happy.”</p><p>Julia nods into Kady’s shoulder, eyes shut. “I choose this. I want this. Both of you, if you’ll have me.”</p><p>Kady presses a soft kiss to her hair. “We would be honored. As long as you want, we can try this out, okay?”</p><p>She pulls back a little and looks between them, faces all close together as they stay tangled in the hug. “I’ve, well, I’ve never tried this before.”</p><p>Penny chuckles and Kady feels it vibrate through the girl in her arms. “We have. Hopefully that’s okay. We can go slow, however you want. Anything, just say the word, and you’ll have it.”</p><p>Julia grins, turning in their loosened hug to face him. “Kiss me?”</p><p>He does. And then Julia turns to her and Kady gets her own kiss, chaste and wonderful with this amazing girl in her arms.</p><p>They break away slowly, and Penny looks over at Kady carefully. She motions for him to come closer, and Julia shifts slightly against their linked arms so they can share their own quick kiss.</p><p>She’s missed this.</p><p>They stand there for another minute or five, all of them grinning at each other and reluctant to break away out of their tangled hug.</p><p>“We should go, we have a treasure to find,” Julia says, and they finally let her out of their arms.</p><p>“I suppose.” Penny says with a grin, and grabs their hands. “Come on, let’s make sure none of them have fallen down the well.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~ FEN ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Fen watches them come back into view, hand in hand with Penny in the middle. Julia is smiling softly and the other two are fighting to keep grins under wraps, but Fen can see the happiness that radiates from all three of them.</p><p>She’s glad, for Julia’s sake. She had met the other girl at Brakebills’ Library when Fen had gone to return a book that Harriet had lent her, and Julia had caught her as she tried, and failed, to reach a new book on a taller shelf without getting a stepladder. Fen had gotten her to take a break from her studies and get some coffee with her, and she checked in with Jules every time they were back on the island.</p><p>They had become fast friends, and Fen had learned a lot about her new friend over the months of coffee dates and library meetups. She heard all about Quentin and Alice, even though she hadn’t met them until this little adventure.</p><p>But Julia never talked about her love life, although she had mentioned that she liked both boys and girls at some point, and Fen didn’t want to pry even as she chattered on freely about her own relationship with Margo and occasionally Eliot. She saw hints of longing sometimes when Julia thought she wasn’t paying attention, though, and had hoped that one day her friend could find someone she loved as much as Fen loved her own girlfriend.</p><p>It seems that she’s found that, at least for now, with Kady and Penny.</p><p>Fen has seen over the last few days how hard Penny has worked to repair his relationship with Kady, even not having been there for the previous incarnation of that love, and she was glad when they worked it all out. They were adorable together, and they obviously cared for one another. And they had extended that care onto Julia.</p><p>Margo whistles as they approach and Kady flips her sister the bird as she laughs.</p><p>“Shut up, ice queen. You don’t have any room to talk after how long you pined for Fen.”</p><p>Fen blushes as Margo hugs her close and kisses her forehead, snuggling back against her girlfriend. Eliot and Quentin watch beaming from nearby where they’re putting equipment into each of the backpacks they had scrounged up off the ships, and she sees Pete roll his eyes fondly as he gathers the finished ladder so they can tie it off to the well supports.</p><p>“All set to go for Treasure Tunnel Traversing?” Marina calls out as she heads over from the bar. She’s going to stay behind, her and Pete, in case they need help from above and to keep an eye on things while the rest of them go down to search the tunnel.</p><p>Josh snorts from where he’s sitting next to the well. “Say that five times fast.”</p><p>Fen laughs. “Nope. Good alliteration though, Marina.”</p><p>She gets dry sarcasm and a small smirk in return. “Thank, you, thank you very much. I’m here all day.”</p><p>They finish packing everything up and slowly lower the homemade ladder into the well after tying the top of the rope around two of the well’s columns.</p><p>Penny tests the strength of the ladder and goes down first, slowly making his way to the bottom after tying a third length of rope around his waist just for extra safety. He makes it without an issue, and Pete hauls the safety rope up before tying to the waist of the next person.</p><p>Kady, Julia, and Margo all go down one after another, and then it’s Fen’s turn. She lets Pete tie the rope around her waist, and carefully follows the movements of the others before her as she climbs over the lip of the well and makes her way down the ladder.</p><p>It sways with her movements, but she holds tight and moves carefully until she eventually reaches the bottom of the well, and Margo and Penny help her down the last step. She unties the rope and Penny gives a shout to let Pete know he can reel it back up for the next person.</p><p>It’s mostly dry down here, with a little bit of slick from the natural moisture in the air and seeping from the soil above them, but Fen wasn’t expecting it to be so cold. It wasn’t freezing or anything, just a little chillier than she had thought it would be.</p><p>Josh comes down next, then Quentin and at last Eliot, and Pete is calling down that he’ll be near the well the whole time so they can yell if they need anything. They stand in the tunnel for a second as flashlights click on one by one to brighten the space ahead of them.</p><p>“Well? Shall we?” Eliot goes to start down the tunnel, and Fen’s flashlight catches on a thin wire as she moves it through the dimly lit space.</p><p>“Wait!” Eliot freezes and everyone turns to her questioningly. She points out the tripwire, and Penny shakes his head and mutters something about paranoid pirates.</p><p>They all step carefully around the wire and keep watch for any other tricks and traps as they slowly head down the tunnel.</p><p>At least they know they’re in the right place.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ KADY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Kady catches the second tripwire, and Fen starts marking them with a frankly terrifying number of knives stuck into the walls of the tunnel above the tripwires.</p><p>Penny’s grin is infectious, and every time she catches sight of it she finds herself chuckling softly.</p><p>The rush of finally being on the right track is intoxicating.</p><p>She holds Julia’s hand tightly so they don’t slip on the slick ground, even though they tied themselves all together with another length of rope, a suggestion of Josh’s in case there’s a pit trap like some nerdy movie has.</p><p>They walk until they come across the remains of a wall. Mostly torn down, Penny and Quentin inspect it and theorize that Chatwin had hidden his hoard behind a fake wall. Since he had been on one of his last runs to ‘collect’ treasure according to his letters, he had probably had the wall broken down so they could start moving it all out eventually.</p><p>“At least we don’t have to hack into it ourselves,” Eliot drawls, and Kady finds herself inclined to agree. That would have been a less-than-fun way to spend an afternoon, with only Fen’s daggers to use unless they went back to the surface for an axe or hammer.</p><p>Past the fake wall they had hoped to find the treasure sitting there, but there’s just more tunnel for the sixty or so feet they can see in the dim light cast by the flashlights.</p><p>Margo mutters something about uselessly long tunnels, and Fen pats her on the back in sympathy before pulling her forward.</p><p>Another five minutes creeping down the tunnel and Kady sees something glint in the darkness. She grabs Penny’s arm with her free hand and they grin at each other in excitement and anticipation for several seconds before they quicken their pace.</p><p>And there it is.</p><p>After so many years of searching for a sign, a hint, anything. Before them are piles of treasure, the lost artifacts of the ancient Fillorian culture.</p><p>She sees rams-head statues with jewels, gold pieces, and other precious stones embedded into the eyes and bases. Carvings, vases, and more tableware like the plate shard Penny had found that Martin had presumably used on his ship. Loose jewels and coins are scattered around and collected in boxes of all shapes and sizes, stacked at the end of the room and probably brought in with the first wave of plunder.</p><p>Everyone stands and stares for a minute at the vast collection, words lost to describe the glorious sight before them.</p><p>Eliot breaks the silence with a long whistle. “Damn. That must have taken forever to get it all down here. How are we supposed to get it out of here?”</p><p>Penny steps forward and picks up one of the foot-high statues as Kady turns her head slightly so her voice will carry. “Pete’s working on that. He’s going to lower a section of the Muntjac’s netting down, one rope on each corner, with blankets to spread out over the holes in the net. Penny’s going to climb up and help him haul it in one load at a time, and we can switch off if they get tired. We just have to carry it through to the entrance of the tunnel.”</p><p>Which wouldn’t be easy, but in the end? It’ll be totally worth it.</p><p>Penny turns and looks at Kady, and she grins at him. She has a few seconds of warning as he strides back before he picks her up with a yell and swings her around in circles as she laughs. He sets her back down and sighs in relief.</p><p>“I can’t believe we finally found it.”</p><p>She leans forward and kisses him, reaching one hand blindly back toward where she remembered Julia to be, and squeezes the hand that slips into hers.</p><p>“We did it.”</p><p>“Now how do we get it back to the people?”</p><p>Kady has thought about that. She looks over at Julia and then back at Penny.</p><p>“How would you like to buy a certain museum and turn it into a cultural display? And then maybe buy another boat?”</p><p>It takes him a second, but Penny laughs as he manages to connect the dots between Brakebills Museum where they met, stealing Chatwin’s papers, with a one Irene McAllistair who sank the Chickady and currently owns said museum.</p><p>“Oh, that’s just genius.”</p><p>Kady grins.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ MARINA ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Marina travels between the closed bar and the well the entire next day with a cart that used to store alcohol that now brings blanket after blanket of treasure back and forth with Margo’s help. They load blankets into the net before Pete and Penny lower it down the well, and put the filled blankets back into the cart and deposit their contents carefully back at the bar before continuing the cycle over and over again.</p><p>Apparently the crew bringing the treasure to the bottom of the well had come up with a system. They would drag a blanket-full like a sled to the first of four tripwires, hold it carefully as they went over the wire, and then repeat dragging and lifting until they got to the net. Then they would deposit the filled blanket and go back for the next load with a new empty blanket while Pete and Penny hauled the treasure up.</p><p>Soon the entire back room of the bar was filled with artifacts, situated as carefully as Marina and Margo could manage in a timely manner. Marina was sure that they were breaking all the archeology rules of treasure-hunting and artifact-finding by touching the objects and handling them with their bare hands, but at least they were trying not to break things. There’s only so much you can do when you’re jerry-rigging ladders and equipment on an island, especially one as sparsely populated as Ember Island.</p><p>Marina had laughed herself silly when Kady had told her the plan to buy the museum, and she couldn’t wait to see what would happen when they got all the treasure cataloged and presentable for a museum.</p><p>She knew they wouldn’t have much of a problem getting permission from the Brakebills University to buy the museum, since Irene had only leased it from them. Fogg, the University Dean, always liked the type of crazy business ventures that regular people shied away from.</p><p>He knew the situation on Ember Island, of course. He had offered to send booze their way on occasion when Skye was kept away with Irene, and Marina had met him several times.</p><p>Yeah, Henry Fogg would be fine with a cultural homage museum.</p><p>Seeing Irene McAllistair’s face, though, when she realizes what is going on? When she understands that if she had bought the museum instead of leasing it, they would have had to come to her instead of the university?</p><p>That was going to be priceless.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ PENNY ~~~</p><p> </p><p>Penny walks through the museum, weaving around half-done projects. There are a few ceiling tiles missing in one place, new carpet still being put in on the east side. So many renovation projects, and areas to clean after Irene had left the museum in disarray for so long.</p><p>It had been a breeze to buy first the original loan and then the museum from Brakebills University. The Dean, Henry Fogg, was quite an interesting character. He, Kady, and Julia had met with him after a week spent getting the treasure topside with the help (and careful watching of) Ember Island’s small community and then cataloging every piece and artifact. Julia and Alice had been immensely helpful in that endeavor, taking charge of lists and descriptions for five long days.</p><p>Margo and Quentin helped with the legal side of things to procure the museum and fill out a mountain of paperwork while Eliot set to work canceling the next week’s thankfully-lightly-scheduled-anyway cruise and dealing with some disgruntled coeds on Brakebills. A free pub-crawl set things to rights, apparently.</p><p>Josh and Fen took charge of renovations of the museum, going in even before it was theirs to scope out the current exhibit locations and determine how much would need to be redone completely. They dressed up for it, ‘in disguise’ they claimed, even though Penny reminded them that no one knew who they were or what they were going to do.</p><p>They got disguised on the Muntjac using the lost and found section of the party barge, and showed off their outfits for the rest of the crew. Margo knocked Fen’s little purple beret hat sideways when she swooped in for a kiss, and Fen fussed at her to fix the braid that was coming undone already. The rest of Fen’s outfit was part beachwear part boho hippie, with a long skirt and boots and a purple halter bikini top under a see-through white shirt. Josh’s outfit was much more normal, khaki shorts and a blue polo with a messenger bag and camera borrowed from Quentin and Julia respectively.</p><p>Penny rolled his eyes as they did mission-impossible poses around the deck of the ship, but told Fen she looked nice and warned Josh not to be too obvious with the camera even though he’s pretty sure no one is going to be on the lookout for someone casing the place.</p><p>And technically they weren’t casing it, not really, they’re not stealing anything. At least not illegally, for a change.</p><p>He waves hello to some of the university grads and locals that they pulled in to help renovate and set up the exhibits, stopping to give approvals and offer opinions as he gets asked for them. He’s headed out to get a late lunch with the girls at the cafe. Kady had texted him saying she was dragging Julia out with her before the other girl went blind from staring at numbers for too long without a break, and Penny had said he would meet them.</p><p>He still can’t believe his life sometimes. He had found the treasure he had searched for so long, reconnected with Kady, was navigating a new aspect of their relationship with Julia.</p><p>Hell, they bought a fucking museum! They contacted locals to help bring authenticity to the objects they had found, heard the stories passed down over generations as a way to remember the lost culture of the islands. Natives like Fen helped write descriptions and the stories behind them. They found as many ways to create jobs as they could, from design to security to guides that help answer tourists’ many stupid questions.</p><p>The new Brakebills Museum of Fillory is supposed to open in a week. There’s so much left to do it’s making Penny’s head spin.</p><p>He walks the few blocks down to the cafe, determined to enjoy an hour’s break. Kady and Julia are already there, and he pauses just inside the door to marvel at the two amazing ladies he has in his life.</p><p>Well, more than two, now that Margo, Fen, and Marina are a constant presence along with the guys, but the only two that he’s dating.</p><p>They’re talking about something, and Julia waves her arms as she tries to describe whatever she’s explaining. Kady is watching her with a fond expression and sipping her coffee, and she catches sight of Penny first as he stands in the doorway.</p><p>‘Come in’ Her fingers say as she grins and motions him over with a tilt of her head. He laughs as Julia stutters to a stop and twists in her chair, eyes lighting up as she sees him. As if he’s been gone for days, even though they all saw each other at breakfast.</p><p>He’ll never get tired of that, of people who are happy to see him.</p><p>Penny slides into the unoccupied seat of their regular table and leans over to kiss both of them on the cheek in greeting.</p><p>“And how are my two favorite ladies this fine afternoon?” He says, taking the drink that Julia passes over to him. It’s his standard coffee with two sugars and a dash of cream, and he hums gratefully at them.</p><p>“I had to force her away from going over the budget again. For the fourth time, after Josh and Pete already looked it over. Tell her it’s fine.” Kady sighs in fond exasperation, and Julia pouts at her.</p><p>“I was just double-checking the numbers!”</p><p>Penny laughs. “I love you both.”</p><p>Sometimes you just have to remind the people you have that they are the best things to happen in your life.</p><p>They look over at him and grab his hands as they each lean over to kiss one of his cheeks this time.</p><p>“We love you too.”</p><p>And he couldn’t ask for anything more.</p><p> </p><p>~~~ THE END ~~~</p>
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